


The Winter King's Bride

by pandabomb



Category: Yuri!!! on Ice (Anime)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Beauty and the Beast Fusion, Alternate Universe - Gods & Goddesses, Alternate Universe - Harem, Angst, Anxiety Attacks, Anxious Katsuki Yuuri, Beauty and the Beast Elements, Blood and Violence, Dark Fairy Tale Elements, Dark Fantasy, Dubious Consent, Explicit Sexual Content, Falling In Love, Grief/Mourning, Implied/Referenced Rape/Non-con, Inspired by Eros and Psyche (Ancient Greek Religion & Lore), Loss of Virginity, M/M, Minor Character Death, Near Death Experiences, Non-Binary Yuri Plisetsky, Past Christophe Giacometti/Victor Nikiforov, Praise Kink, Sexual Coercion, Suicidal Thoughts
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-09-01
Updated: 2019-11-26
Packaged: 2020-10-05 01:26:06
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 31,838
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20480669
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/pandabomb/pseuds/pandabomb
Summary: The winter king lived in a castle of ice, guarded by a beast, in the highest corner of the world. He governed a land of barren white. All reaches of winter were his domain; all lands touched by frost were his subjects.Katsuki Yuuri was an innkeeper's son from a warm, quiet seaside town.[Dark Fairytale / Beauty and the Beast AU]





	1. The Winter King Was a Greedy God

**Author's Note:**

> pls see the endnotes for more discussion on tags and possible triggers.
> 
> thank you to @moonbelowsea and @carryaworld for their read-throughs! 
> 
> enjoy~

Before the wilds were tamed, or the fires were yoked, or the land was all claimed, there were stories of the winter king and his dark-eyed bride.

The winter king lived in a castle of ice, guarded by a beast, in the highest corner of the world. He governed a land of barren white. All reaches of winter were his domain; all lands touched by frost were his subjects.

Katsuki Yuuri lived in a quiet seaside town.

Hasetsu was a warm, temperate place, held to moderate winters by the steady bounty of the ocean. The people there would bid winter farewell at an early age, with long summers and robust spring; for many generations, they wanted for nothing, the winter king’s whims and anger and loneliness only a fast flurry in the fewest, darkest days of the year.

Satisfy the winter king. Slay the winter beast. Either task would usher in the thaw. 

These responsibilities, for many generations, could be left to the people of the North—those who worshipped the winter king, knew his power and influence best. 

Until, one day, they couldn’t.

“Snow?” Yuuri said, pulling aside a sliding door to the veranda outside. He wore a plain brown kimono and bulky overcoat—one typical for the season, the other not. “But—it’s still summer.”

His elder sister, Mari, sighed heavily behind him. “I know. And if the fields freeze, this late in the season….”

Yuuri’s stomach dropped. His chest swelled with dread. Not another scarce winter. They couldn’t do another one. His parents, their livestock, their business—they couldn’t weather another.

“Maybe,” Yuuri thought aloud, voice shaky, “we could spare a rooster?”

They had heard the tales: the winter king could be pleased with offerings. So the Northerners said, when they arrived in the harbor with their pale eyes and pink skin. The winter king seemed a greedy god, callous and cold and eager for acknowledgement and attention—but weren’t they all, these immortals? Even the deities born and exalted in Hasetsu craved their endless worship.

“I don’t know if he would hear us,” Mari said. “We’re far from his usual domain.”

Regardless, Yuuri bundled up and ventured outside. He checked the coop. They couldn’t spare even a single bird.

That night, the fields froze solid, only weeks away from harvest.

{~}

“You don’t have to,” his mother whispered, her hands cupping her son’s face. “We can make do. We’ll find a way. _ Please_, Yuuri; you don’t—”

“Mom,” Yuuri whispered back. He framed her hands with his own, letting them linger for a few moments before pulling them down and away. “I want to go. It’s—I’m honored, I am, that I can do this. That even I can do this much.”

Katsuki Yuuri stood behind a cart, which would take him to a ship, which would sail him to a northern shore. Autumn had never come; summer had yielded right to bitter frost. The winter king was a greedy god.

Tears streamed down his mother’s face; the faces of his friends. His sister stood stoic, jaw clenched in soundless pain. His father hadn’t spoken a word for days, ever since Yuuri had announced his intentions and pronounced his shakeless resolve.

“I know how much we have,” Yuuri had told them. “I’ve counted it all. And there isn’t enough for four.”

Perhaps, in another season—in another lifetime—Yuuri could have simply fled to a new life, a new land, new passions. He could have ventured from home for years, only to return and find his family healthy, happy, and well. But that was not his truth. If he did not leave for this grim task, sparking their hopes and easing their burden, his family would not survive.

If winter was not vanquished, everything Yuuri knew would surely die.

Only when the cart rumbled away, and the ship pushed off from harbor, and Yuuri was curled up in a hammock below deck—then, and only then, did Yuuri break into a shattering of breathless weeping. 

{~}

Katsuki Yuuri stood, trembling, at the counter of an inn.

The northern lands were a watercolor of white, brown, blue: snow, ice, sky, dirt; wooden buildings, frozen and boot-churned mud, the skinned pelts of chestnut animals. It was unspeakably cold—a horrible, gut-punching freeze like Yuuri had never felt.

A clutch of coins rattled in his hands. It was all Yuuri had left. If the stories could be believed, it was all he would ever need again.

The innkeeper looked him up and down. Scoffed. “Another bride, eh?”

Yuuri said nothing. His words were petrified in his icy, gasping lungs. 

“Your clothes are worse than most. You come from far south?”

Jerkily, Yuuri nodded.

“Drop the money. Spread it out.”

Yuuri obeyed, placing the coins on the counter with a dull, dragging _ whap_.

The innkeeper scanned them all, _ hmm-_ing. “That’ll do, I suppose. For the room. And…” he looked down and back, into the drawers beneath the counter. “Here. This should keep you alive, hopefully, until you reach the castle.”

Yuuri reached out, accepting the man’s offering. It was a thick parka—gray and brown, of course; a chestnut animal, skinned and tanned—that smelled of beer and mildew. 

“Your key,” the innkeeper said, shoving a brass key across the counter. “I’ll show you the room. But don’t get too comfortable. Spend some time in the tavern. You’re not the only one heading the way you’re heading.”

“Th-thank you,” Yuuri mumbled, stuttering with shivers. “B-But—why—”

“I’m in a good mood,” the innkeeper said. He grinned a black-and-yellow smile. “Business is booming. Praise the winter king.”

{~}

In the tavern, there was a set of twins.

“The fields froze,” the girl, Sara, said. “A cold snap, just at the end of summer. We barely have enough to last us a few months.”

“It was the same for us,” Yuuri said, nodding over his warm dinner. 

Sara smiled. It was brittle, but true. “So I decided to find the winter king. If I find him, I think I can find a way to convince him, or—or force him to yield. Whatever it takes.”

“You won’t need to do _ anything_,” her brother said—Michele, a boy barely scraping manhood. “Before that devil even glances at you, I will kill the winter beast.”

Yuuri studied him. The boy certainly dressed the part: gleaming metal armor, a puffed-up chest, and a fine sword lashed to his side. All he needed was a steed to make the role truly fit.

“I’m leaving late tomorrow morning,” Sara said. Her resolve was ironclad, even more so than her brother’s chest. “If we leave then, we should arrive at the castle just after nightfall.”

“_After _ nightfall?” Yuuri asked. 

“That’s right,” Sara replied. Her eyes flitted to her brother and back—worrying, dreading. “After dark. When the beast sleeps.”

Yuuri nodded again, but a fresh terror churned in his gut. Sara was beautiful, with eyes like belladonna and skin like honed bronze. Her determination shone like a beacon. She did not hesitate. Her beauty and bravery reminded Yuuri of his own plainness, his poor eyes, his dull skin, his full cheeks, his trembling hands; of the constant terror that dripped from his every rib and saturated sticky in the pit of his stomach.

In the face of Yuuri’s pale silence, Sara offered another smile. “Will you come with us?”

{~}

Katsuki Yuuri, swathed in a hand-me-down parka smelling of stale alcohol, stood small and awed below a glistening fortress of ice.

The winter king’s castle was built into the sheer cliff of a glacier. Pinnacles of stone, the ice’s cradle in the mountain, reached from its base to the sky, carved by no mortal craftsman’s hands. Great icicles hung and glittered in the fading light of evening, casting glimmering prisms into the platforms of snow below.

A broad, wide-stepped staircase led to the castle doors. There was no sign of a beast.

“We’re here,” Sara said, the words tumbling from her mouth in a plume of steam. 

Michele’s eyes darted to and fro, seeking the winter beast in the last vestiges of daylight. “Don’t touch anything,” he told his sister, sword clutched in his hand. “Watch your step.”

Without another word, Sara began to climb the stairs, head held high, her expression one of serene, regal stone.

Yuuri followed clumsily in her wake—staring down at his feet and clinging to the side-rail with chilled, trembling fingers.

Sara reached the door first, her brother at her back and glancing restlessly into the distance. When her boots alit upon the last stair, the great doors of ice swung open with a long, heavy creak. A warm hiss of air gusted from the gap. 

“Well,” Sara muttered, laughing thinly, flinching at the sudden heat. “Shall we go in?”

_ No_, Yuuri wanted to say. 

_ No_, screamed every thread of his mind.

_ No_, begged his immortal soul.

“Yes,” he said, and thought of Hasetsu—of his loved ones, shivering and starving in this ceaseless winter.

As the door slid shut at their backs, the _ clang _ echoed back into the depths of eternity. 

{~}

The castle of the winter king was a home befitting a god.

The white threshold bled into a crystalline hall. As the dusk-light faded to night, pale flickers of golden flame alit within chandeliers of diamond. The walls and floors and pointed archways of shining blue ice were carved with mountains, pines of the taiga, snarling wolves, and snowbirds in flight. 

Yuuri blinked at all the finery with dark, bleary eyes, his nose red and stinging beneath his glasses. While the twins gawked, their matching footsteps heavy in shock, Yuuri took it all in quietly; he could easily accept the role as the small, dreary wallflower among a tapestry of sublime beauty. 

Sara led them past the entryway, then into a large interior room—and gasped. A long table of glass boasted yards of steaming delicacies: roasted pheasants and quails; sticky-sweet pears drenched in mulled spices and syrupy wines; toasted nuts and lively greens and mushroom caps the size of fists. The banquet was untouched, as though set out and left only for their enjoyment.

Despite the nervous sweat dampening his parka, Yuuri’s stomach snarled at the sight.

Michele leered at the foods, then turned his head aside to spit. “A devil, offering temptation. As expected.”

Sara did not reply. She took two slow, clacking steps forward.

“Sara,” Michele hissed, yanking at her arm. “I told you. Don’t touch _ anything_. It’s his food; he will use it to keep you here.”

On the table, there was a tall pastry dotted with red. Were those currants? Strawberries? Yuuri had not eaten one in a very long time. Perhaps years.

“And why shouldn’t he?” Sara snapped back. “I’ve come here to end the winter, Mickey. If my mind and body are all he asks in return, then he’s welcome to have them.”

Yuuri swiped a finger through the pastry’s white topping. Was this whipped cream?

“He will not _ touch _ you,” Michele insisted, voice cracking. “Tomorrow morning, I will slay the beast, and we will go home, together—”

Yuuri made a little noise of satisfaction. It _ was _ whipped cream.

The twins stared at him in silence. Yuuri pulled out a chair and sat down. He reached for a dish with a shining pale color—was it truly silver? But of course it was; Yuuri was no fool—and began to place different morsels on his plate.

“Yuuri?” Sara finally asked. There was a slight tremble in her voice, one Yuuri had not heard before.

“Hm?” He responded, lips closing over a polished fork. A burst of flavor danced onto his tongue; the pheasant had been rubbed with butter and fresh herbs.

“You…” Sara mumbled. She took another moment, as though fighting through surprise. “You’ve started eating.”

“Yes,” Yuuri said. He smiled. “I think I will die here.” The baked pears were soft and juicy enough to be cut with the side of his fork. They tasted of cinnamon and nutmeg. “After all, the winter king is not kind. Whether we eat or just spend the night, I doubt he will ever allow us to leave.”

Neither twin said a word. 

After a few moments, Sara took a seat next to Yuuri. She began fixing her own plate, and ignored all her brother’s attempts to interrupt. 

Side by side, the two brides ate their fill, eyes ahead and minds clear—no glances spared for darkened corners, or heartbroken brothers, or even to one another.

{~}

The banquet was not only for them.

As the night thickened, the castle swelled with noise and life. Chairs around the glass table began to fill. Brides of the winter king, of all sizes and appearance—some clear-eyed; others dimmed with time, or cold, or hopelessness—arrived to partake in the feast. Music began to trickle from empty corners, from instruments invisible. Unseen servants refilled goblets, placed fresh napkins, and cleared vacant platters.

The more that arrived, the more Yuuri wished to disappear. All these warm bodies, bright minds, and beautiful faces—and still, the winter king was not happy? For someone like Sara, perhaps, it was the perfect tale: the cold winter king satisfied by the fiery love and wits of a bright, purehearted beauty. But for Yuuri, he thought, it must be a fool’s errand—a drab, mousy man, wrapped in a stinking parka and scrawny from scarcity; and he had hoped to, what, satisfy a god? To do what no other hero or seducer could?

No. Impossible. 

Rather, it must be Yuuri’s fate to perish here in comfort. The notion did not altogether displease him. It was more than what most received, in the end. 

It was more than what his family would get.

Yuuri clapped a hand over his mouth, halting a rush of vomit.

A beautiful man across the table laughed at the sight, his bright green eyes glimmering with golden candlelight. “Too much rich food?” He asked, as though Yuuri were a gluttonous child overeager at the holiday table.

Yuuri only nodded. He didn’t trust his words yet.

“You’ll get used to it, friend,” the man said. Laughter wove through his every word. “There is a lot to get accustomed to, here. But our darling husband makes it so very easy.”

“Where is he?” Sara asked in a rush. “Where can I find him?”

The green-eyed man smirked. “I’m Chris. Nice to meet you.”

“_Where _ is the winter king?” Sara repeated. 

“Oh, around,” Chris responded. His eyes and one elegant hand flitted up as he took a sip of wine. Everything about the man hinted at wittiness, softness, lusciousness. “He is winter, after all. He comes and goes as he likes.”

“I must speak to him,” Sara said. “I _ must _ see him. Tonight.”

Her gaze stretched back, to where her brother sat and leaned against a wall of ice. He had stubbornly kept away from the food, sipping his own water and chewing on some sort of jerky from his pack.

“Perhaps you will,” Chris said. “If you’re lucky. He chooses one bedmate per night, and his desires aren’t easily predicted.” The green-eyed man smirked again. “Well. Except by me, I suppose.”

Yuuri frowned. He was not so fresh-footed or stuck-up that he didn’t recognize an innuendo when he heard one. But there was something sad in the man’s demeanor, something hidden.

“How long have you been his bride?” Yuuri asked.

“Oh, who knows,” Chris replied—laughing, waving, eyes glimmering. “Time is strange here. You’ll find that it’s not so important anymore.”

That wasn’t much of an answer, nor did Yuuri think it was honest. But he gave the beautiful man his own name, then returned to eating, and pried no more.

{~}

Bellies full, eyes tired and glassy, the brides of the winter king began to retire.

They left one by one, sometimes two by two, through a pair of pointed arches perched on either side of the glass table. Each bride, except for Yuuri and Sara, wore sumptuous fabrics and furs: kaftans and sarafans of velvet, silk, and fine wool, embroidered with vivid colors and precious beads and gold-spun threads. As they left the hall, a seldom few returned Yuuri’s gaze, or even seemed the least bit interested in him.

_ The winter king’s horde is all things beautiful and cold_, Yuuri thought. _ Some of it just happens to be alive. _

“I am going to find a bed,” Yuuri said. “And hopefully a bath.”

At his side, Sara nodded. “Good idea.”

Yuuri walked the same path as the other brides, following a tide that he hoped would lead to rest. Sara made to come the same way. Her brother, of course, marched close behind—but was halted by some strange force the moment he reached one of the inner thresholds.

“What?” He mumbled, stumbling from the doorway. It was as though strong hands had shoved him back. “Sara! Come back to me. Something is—”

“Mickey!” Sara cried out, hurrying back to her twin.

Yet as she approached the threshold, eager to return, she suddenly stopped, feet anchored firmly to the floor. Her eyes went wide and wet.

“I… can’t go back,” she whispered. Yuuri heard the words just barely, where he stood in the hallway behind her trembling shoulders. “He won’t—” Her throat clicked on a thick swallow. “He won’t… let me go back.”

Yuuri lifted a hand. He pressed the air within open doorway. It was as though he sunk into the mush and wet of a swamp, his hand swallowed and eased into a sudden pressure. No matter how he pushed, he could not break through.

Tears streamed down Sara’s face. Through the doorway, her twin’s expression was a perfect match.

“I will kill it,” Michele promised, clutching his sword furiously. “You—you keep warm. All right, Sara? I will kill the beast tomorrow. The moment it awakens.”

“No,” Sara breathed, shaking her head. “Just stay there! In that room! I will return tomorrow; the castle let them all in before, to let them eat, so if you just_ stay there—” _

“You’ll come back here,” Michele said. He grinned. “You can greet me, after my victory.”

“No!” Sara yelled. She was becoming hysterical. “No! _ Listen to me! _ You must stay there, right in that room; do _ not _ go outside!”

Michele’s smile was soft, as though his sister’s panic was an act of love. “I will see you tomorrow, _ princesa. _ In the light of spring.”

“Mickey!” Sara sobbed, shoving at the open threshold in vain. “Promise me! Say you won’t challenge the beast!”

“Sara,” Yuuri said. His voice was nearly a breath. “It will be all right.” His grasp on her wrist was gentle, yet firm enough to drag her frantic fist from the door. “You’ll meet the king tonight. You’ll convince him. You said you would.”

She looked to Yuuri with wild eyes. He thought she might lash at him. Instead, she grit her jaw, blinked away tears, took a deep breath, and nodded. “Yes. You’re right.”

Her wrist slid away; Yuuri let it go. He caught Michele glaring at him acidly. Then the twins focused on each other again, lost in a world of closed gazes and a knowledge and language all their own.

Yuuri walked away, recognizing when he was unwelcome. He let them have their goodbyes.

{~}

Yuuri wandered down a hallway lined with gold-shining lamps, a long and beautiful rug stretching endlessly beneath his feet. As he walked, a few brides disappeared behind pale-metal doors. Yuuri kept walking, because it seemed right, and he did not know what else to do. 

He walked towards a door with filigrees of gold twisting into the silver-white. It creaked open, as though sensing his approach. 

Yuuri peered within. It was a cozy bedroom with a four-post bed, rabbit-skin blanket, and walls and fireplace crafted of white stone. Yuuri remembered the stretches of mountain-face that comprised part of the exterior castle, its pinnacles and edges. Could this room be carved of that mountainside?

No one was inside. Nothing about the interior or decorations implied the room was in use. It was as good a place to rest as any.

The moment Yuuri stepped inside, the door clanged shut behind him. 

_ This castle is drafty_, Yuuri thought.

Tiredly, blearily, Yuuri looked about. The four-post bed was carved of a white-grey wood he didn’t recognize. Its sheets matched, a light eggshell tone, as did the pillows. Yuuri guessed that even the feathers within were a snowy swans-down. An ornate wardrobe, bench, and vanity completed the decor; a single, wide-open threshold was across the way, likely leading to a bathing area or cistern.

“I do wish I could bathe,” Yuuri mumbled.

Through the square doorway beyond the bed, there was a sudden _ swish _ of running water.

Yuuri followed the sound. Beyond the threshold, a bathroom sprawled white-grey and clean. The wide bath, carved from the veins of marble in the bowels of a mountainside, was quickly filling with steaming, fragrant water. 

There was no door. Perhaps it was to distribute heat, Yuuri thought—or because privacy was no longer his privilege, in this castle that listened to and obeyed orders that he barely gave voice to.

Yuuri stripped, folding his grungy clothes neatly and leaving them by the doorway. Lifting water from the bath with cupped hands, he rinsed the sweat and grime from his skin as well as he could. When he entered the bath, the marble was soft and polished beneath his skin, a firm satin to the touch. 

Yuuri left his clothes by the doorway. He knew he did. And he only turned his back from them once or twice, keeping a watchful eye on the wide-open threshold as a matter of nerves—yet still, when Yuuri was finished, his clothes were nowhere to be seen.

Fear lodged in his throat, thick and cloying. 

“W-Who’s there?” Yuuri called out shakily. 

No one answered. The clothes were gone. He had put them _ right there_, by the doorway.

Yuuri shut his eyes, swallowing against terror. “I need… I want to dry off, please.”

His eyes slid open. Upon the bath’s marble perch, in easy grabbing distance of his left hand, was a perfectly folded linen.

Yuuri was warm, clean, cared for—yet his hand shook as he took up the cloth. Water sluiced from his bare, exposed body before he could step free of the bath and wrap himself up tightly.

On the bed, a delicate, soft white kaftan had been spread out lovingly. It looked like the sort of nightwear that a virgin was expected to wear on their wedding night. There was no other clothing. 

For a moment, in a newly sparked rage, Yuuri thought to ignore it. He felt like a doll being fitted for a costume, or a duck fluffed up for plucking; the new, ornamental lady of the house, waited on by invisible servants, dressed up for a husband he neither knew nor cared for, in a cold house he didn’t own or have any authority over—

But no. He was a bride of the winter king. 

This is what he had decided—had submitted himself to.

Yuuri threw the soaked linen aside uncaringly, putting it out of sight. By now, he figured it would vanish into the castle’s innards all on its own, all used up with its purpose complete. He wondered, briefly, horrifyingly: _ Is that what will become of me? Of us all? _

No. No more thoughts. They didn’t help him; never had. 

Yuuri took up the delicate kaftan. Looped it over his head. Dressed and clean, he scurried into the large, plush bed. He huddled into the covers and mattress like a mouse in its burrow.

“Please…” he mumbled, eyes sliding shut, to the ever-present ears of the castle. “Don’t make it too dark. I want… I’d like some light to see by. When the time comes.”

At his bidding, the lamps merely dimmed, tiny golden pinpricks clinging dutifully to their wicks and oil.

There was no way he could truly sleep. Yuuri’s mind churned and whirled in agonized fear. The uncertainty, the inevitability, it all ate and gnawed at him with blunt yet crushing teeth. He had a door separating him from the hallway, yes, but what latch could hold back a god? What enchanted house would deny the master his due, his access, his rights to what had been willingly given?

“Don’t let him in,” Yuuri whispered—just to see if he could. “Give me just… one night. Please. _ Please_.”

No one answered. The lamps sputtered, hung on.

Yuuri’s exhausted mind, racing, managed to slip into a shallow rest.

{~}

An icy breeze spurred Yuuri wide awake.

The lamps still clung to life. His bed was warm, large, comfortable. All was soft and quiet. Yet there had been a bare coldness at his cheeks, his forehead; even now, it tickled at Yuuri’s lips, nipped at the tip of his nose. 

As the sleepy moments slugged past, the air grew even colder.

Yuuri gasped, and the breath was a visible vapor to his dark-adjusted eyes. He hadn’t removed his glasses for fear that they too would vanish; with a quick glance, he saw a sliver of light reaching beneath the shut door, the illumination of bright lamps clamoring in from the lit hallway beyond.

Yuuri flinched at the gusting cold. It felt as though even the wet of his eyes would freeze over. But he refused to make a sound, only clutching the covers tightly to his body. 

That sliver of light from the hallway broke as something—someone—passed through it.

Yuuri’s gaze locked onto the base of the door. There was a shadow: two feet, stock-still, though he had heard no footsteps approaching. 

_ Crick, crack_—a crisp snapping as the metallic door began to freeze. A crystalline pattern unfurling from the doorknob, as though beneath an icy touch.

Yuuri clamped a hand over his mouth, trying not to cry out. 

In his foolish haste, Yuuri let out what little warmth the bed had left; he couldn’t smother the whimper in his throat as the freeze hit his body like a slap. The shadow stayed put, motionless, even as Yuuri began to cry with sipped gasps.

Then it stepped away. The door remained firmly shut.

Nearby—it must be the room just across the hall—Yuuri heard the creak of another bride’s door opening. The _ clack _ of it shutting.

Yuuri did not sleep anymore. 

{~}

In the morning, they were permitted to enter the dining room again.

Sara sat at the table, not eating, her eyes red and swollen. There was a crazed lilt in her paled frown, the crinkle of her brow, her swiftly flitting gaze. 

Yuuri sat at her side without a word.

“I haven’t seen Mickey,” she whispered. Her hands trembled in her lap. “He hasn’t come back.”

Yuuri breathed deeply. Nodded. “And the winter king?”

“I saw him,” Sara muttered. “Last night. He—chose me.”

Yuuri’s chest jolted on a short gasp. “What… what was he like?”

_ Did he hurt you? Is that one reason why you’re trembling? How long have your eyes been so swollen, so haunted? _

“I failed,” Sara admitted. A sob escaped her lips. “I asked for spring, but he—it didn’t matter. Whatever I said, even if I begged, it didn’t—”

Yuuri dropped a hand onto her arm. Sara flinched at the touch, then settled, sliding her grip over to clench Yuuri’s hand. 

“I’m going out to find him,” Sara said. “I can’t bear it.”

Yuuri nodded again. Squeezed her hand. 

{~}

Sara returned to the castle for dinner.

Her boots were snow-soaked and her feet heavy as she dragged herself past the castle’s entryway. Yuuri caught her eye, and she shook her head once, looking distraught but not grieving. Unless she wished to speak, Yuuri resolved to leave her be.

Yuuri had spent the day inside the castle, keeping warm and exploring. He tested the limits of the castle’s obedience. A quietly murmured _ Please let me in _ had granted him access to many rooms: parlors, libraries, and even a den with a roaring fireplace and a loom taller than Yuuri could jump. But he couldn’t enter anyone else’s bedroom without permission, nor could he find a kitchen or storeroom for supplies.

The hallways wound strangely here. Yuuri could not create a mental map of their layout. After the lunch hour, he had tried to follow one hallway until it terminated; the perfectly masoned hall had eventually roughened, darkened, and splintered into a cedar-scented, wood-paneled path, winding down and through the mountain’s belly.

So Yuuri had turned back. 

Dinner was just as rich as the night before. Yuuri had far less appetite. He picked at his food fussily; wondered what happened to the delicacies they never touched.

“Better that you force it down,” Chris drawled, watching Yuuri shove his food about. “We may live in luxury here, but there is very little keeping you from the wasteland.” He nodded towards the entryway and grinned. “Just one door, to be precise.”

Yuuri listened, then grit his jaw. Scooped some food onto his spoon and shoved it into his mouth.

“There you are,” Chris said, seeming pleased. “You, out of all of us, need your strength the most.”

Yuuri frowned. “What is that supposed to mean?”

“Exactly what you think it means.”

“How,” Yuuri forced out; he swallowed, banishing a gag and ushering the food back down his throat. “How would you know that?”

Chris shrugged. “He was in the mood for a new bride last night.” His stunning green eyes, vibrant as a lush field in late summer, shifted to look at Sara. “You. Sara. That’s your name, yes?”

The young woman hesitated, as though weighing the possible benefits of the conversation. Then she nodded.

“And did he find you… satisfying?”

Winter gales howled against the castle, bursting drafts into the halls and spinning flurries against the outer walls. Sara glowered.

“Well, there you are.” Chris leaned back; took a luxurious sip of his wine. “He wanted a new bride. He found her lacking. Now, he’ll try the next.”

Yuuri stared at his plate. For a few long, agonizing moments, he fought the urge to snap at this smug man, or shovel the entire plate into his mouth, or vomit his one gulp of food all over the ice-paned floor. He resisted the last two—but not the first. “Oh, I don’t know,” Yuuri said acidly. “Perhaps, instead of someone new, he’ll desire someone who has failed many times.”

A delighted laugh jolted from Chris’s shapely chest. “Either way,” he said, chuckling between sips from his goblet. “Whether it’s you, or me, I win no matter what.”

Yuuri frowned.

Chris finished his wine. Swiped a napkin over his lush, burgundy-stained mouth. 

“I am fed, safe, and sleep in a fine bed every night. It’s more than I ever had in my former life. Why should I care about the happiness of some sullen god?”

{~}

Yuuri returned to his bedroom.

The winter king’s castle had given him clothes, an indigo kaftan and velvet slacks. Yuuri let those drop crumpled and careless to the floor. As he strode to the bath, he whispered: “I would like a bucket, stool, wash cloth, and some proper soap, please. And some oils.”

They were waiting for him next to the bath.

“Thank you,” said Yuuri. No one answered.

Once he was well-rinsed, Yuuri placed one foot onto the first step of the bath. He took off his glasses, setting them down gently on the marble lip. “Please don’t move my glasses,” he said quietly.

As he bathed, he kept checking them. The glasses never moved. 

“May I have a comb?” Yuuri muttered, bathwater dripping from his elbows and fingertips. 

He reached out to where he thought a comb might be—and there it was, fine-toothed and carved of ivory. It was soothing, peaceful, and mindless to work through the small snarls and snags that had built up over the day. Yuuri’s pitch-black hair, previously cut short, was beginning to grow out, nearly falling past the notch at the top of his spine.

When he left the bath, drying off with a fresh linen, Yuuri saw that another soft white kaftan had been laid out on the bed. He had expected it.

Washed and dressed, Yuuri slid into bed. “May I have something to read? Something light?”

He glanced at the side-table. A book was perched there. 

“Thank you,” Yuuri whispered. 

He read until his eyes began to sag. With a sigh, he rubbed his lids and took off his glasses, placing both them and the book onto the side-table. 

“Please leave my glasses where I put them,” Yuuri mumbled. Of course, no one answered, but he knew he was heard. “Can you dim the light? Like it was last night?”

The castle obliged. Yuuri sighed. 

Another night of fitful rest, it would seem, until the winter king made his choice.

{~}

Yuuri did not listen for footsteps. He would not hear them.

His dark eyes creaked open in the pale night. Cold danced along his skin like a spectre, even under the covers, even when he dragged his palms up and down his own arms. That beam of light from the hallway was long and unbroken; no one stood outside his door.

Yet, as he waited, lying on his side in bed, a steady chill crept up Yuuri’s spine. 

Hazy time passed in drowsy silence—Yuuri’s eyes open, his mind vacant, passing nearly into the obscurity of sleep. 

Yuuri snapped to awareness just as the beam of light was broken.

Silence. The shadow of two feet. Yuuri’s breath, visible, growing heavy, gasping in the steady chill. The crackle of the metal door as it froze over completely. 

The jiggle of the doorknob, sliding of a latch—and the muted creak of hinges as the door swung open. 

A tall, imposing figure in the doorway. 

_ So_, Yuuri mused, his own thoughts distant and tinny, as though his mind were held gurgling and screaming under the surface of a pond. _ Chris was right. _

In the light of the lantern-lined hallway, the winter king’s hair shone a ghostly white—stark as the bergs floating and groaning among the thickening sheets of sea-ice; fine as spider-silk of spun silver. His dark boots made no sound when he stepped into the room. The effect was bizarre and unearthly, as though the lord of winter always floated a mere breath’s-span above the ground.

Perhaps he did. Yuuri knew so little about him—this heartless, greedy god; this distant husband.

The winter king came to a silent stop at his bedside. He wore a kaftan of deep blue; bare silver stitching in the velvet bore the whispers of a pine forest, its branches and needles tumbling together into a starlit path. And Yuuri saw, now, that much of the god’s imposing silhouette was his cloak: a chestnut animal, skinned and tanned. The thick pelt swathed from the god’s shoulders to the floor, pinned in place by a silver brooch—right above where a heart would have been, if he were a mortal man.

White fingertips, the sharp ends of icicles, rose to brush Yuuri’s cheek. 

Yuuri shuddered.

To cover his flinch, Yuuri shifted to sit up, pinning the covers against his stomach. It was so _ cold_. How was he supposed to speak normally? What should he _ do? _

A soft, lyrical voice broke the silence, rendering Yuuri dumbstruck. 

“What is your name?”

Yuuri hadn’t been expecting—that. For the voice of the winter king to be so smooth, deep, and delicate. He fought against the lump in his throat; resisted shivering again, or allowing his jaw to chatter.

“Y-Yuuri,” he said, because that was what he’d been asked, wasn’t it? “My name is Katsuki Yuuri.”

Those fingertips, unnaturally white—surely no living man had such pale, lifeless skin—lifted again to frame Yuuri’s face, cupping his jawline. The winter king’s touch was a stream running too fast to freeze. 

“Yuuri,” said the god, turning his name like a smooth pebble found by the road, something pleasing enough to keep in his pocket for now and toss aside later. His mouth curved into a half-smile; it resonated false and hollow. “How lovely.”

Lovely. Lovely. The winter king was lovely, but Yuuri should have known that. In the hesitant gold of the sputtering sconces, the god’s pale features were sharp, unsettling, yet undeniably beautiful: high structure, sharp jaw, shining blue eyes. When his head tilted in the light, the mirage of an icy crown glimmered atop his spider’s-silk hair. His smile was handsome and his words were soft. 

But it was a facade. Practiced. It was what a frightened human would like to see, from a strange and immortal husband they had just met.

The god leaned close, cool breath tickling Yuuri’s neck. His alabaster hand pressed into the bedding; his frostbite-mouth brushed Yuuri’s cheek. Yuuri jolted at the touch, hands wrenching taut in the heat-clinging covers.

The winter king leaned away. “Are you not willing?”

Yuuri wondered, breathlessly, if that truly mattered. Perhaps it did; after all, even if Yuuri did not spread his legs, the winter king had no lack of willing bed-partners. Or maybe a god so entwined in mortals’ hardship and death was more intrigued by an unwilling participant—would not be satisfied by anything less.

“I-I am,” Yuuri muttered, jaw trembling slightly. “It’s only… you’re very cold.”

The winter king smiled. Soothing. Gentling a startled animal. Hollow.

Icicle fingertips burned a slow line from Yuuri’s chin to clavicle. “You’ll grow used to it.”

He eased Yuuri back into the bed, frigid hands grazing over Yuuri’s arms, his chest, along his spine. His form seemed overwhelming, menacing as he loomed over Yuuri’s thinly dressed body; only the covers, their clothing, and their small gusts of breath separated them.

The winter king moved to pull away the covers entirely, and Yuuri flinched, halting his hand. “Wait,” he rushed out, “please, let’s—I d-don’t want to lose all the heat.”

The god’s lips pressed to the corner of Yuuri’s mouth; Yuuri felt the amused smile there. “Will you share it with me? Warm me up?”

Yuuri had the sense that he was being teased. He did not have the sense to ignore it. “Why not?” he whispered. Gathering his courage, Yuuri took in a deep, chilling breath. “I am your bride, after all.”

The god leaned away for a moment, seeming to only stare at Yuuri. His pale eyelashes appeared as snowflakes drifting onto the marble face of a statue.

“Yes,” the god muttered. His eyes tracked the quickened pulse at Yuuri’s neck, smoothed down to his exposed clavicles, and stopped at the small peaks of nipples under Yuuri’s white kaftan. Yuuri flushed at the gaze, bringing his arms closer to shield himself. “You are my bride. And that means you must make me happy.”

Yuuri swallowed. “And you, me.”

The god tilted his head, as though Yuuri had said something quaint.

“And you, me,” Yuuri repeated. Brown eyes met icy blue. Though Yuuri’s heart tried to dance from his ribcage, he refused to flinch away. “You must make me happy too.”

The winter king gave another of his off-smiles, one that didn’t reach his eyes. His hands roamed Yuuri’s body, touching where he pleased and moving aside what remaining fabric stood in his path; he no longer seemed interested in indulging Yuuri’s weak attempts at forestallment. Yet even as his frozen touch slid down the covers and pushed up the kaftan, he kept his movements gentle, slow, careful—Yuuri’s fragile, mortal body a pristine landscape to be enjoyed slowly, or even treasured.

One of Yuuri’s hands clenched in the white bedding. The other rose to cover his bitten mouth—smothering a whimper and vivid blush as the winter king laid him entirely bare.

Stripped, powerless, and cold, Yuuri could not meet the god’s eyes. No one had ever seen him like this. Touched him like this. No matter how he wished ignorance of it, he _ burned _ at the god’s perusal, his indulgence of Yuuri’s form and nakedness—and what a body it was, whittled down with famine and journeying. Yuuri thought he had little hope of meeting the god’s tastes, let alone satisfying his desires.

But the god did not recoil in disgust. That must be one factor in his favor already.

“Are you afraid?” The god asked—and Yuuri gritted his teeth, frustrated at another question he must lie to.

“No,” he replied, lifting his hand from the bedding to tug on the god’s cloak. “Give me this. Please. I told you already, I am cold.”

A soft, chilly huff escaped the god’s mouth as he chuckled. “And I must make you happy.”

“Yes,” said Yuuri. He refused to blush at the jab, instead pulling at the cloak again.

Yuuri resisted a yelp as the god’s hands encircled his waist, fingers spreading along his lower back. He lifted Yuuri easily, as though he were made of paper, and eased the bride into his lap. When Yuuri did not resist or move much at all, too startled and embarrassed—he was naked, legs spread, atop a husband who was entirely clothed—the god unclasped the cloak and looped it over Yuuri’s shoulders.

The winter king held his head in place with a grasp to the chin. “I will give you whatever you ask for,” he whispered, his lips cold and plush against the shell of Yuuri’s ear. “Anything in my power. All you have to do is ask.”

_ Spring_. Yuuri nearly choked on the thought—a gagging, desperate hope filling his chest and threatening to burst forth. But it could not be true. He would certainly not be the first to ask for such a thing. Sara had already done so; she had been in Yuuri’s exact position only last night—

Anger, consuming and red-hot, bloomed in every reach of Yuuri’s body. 

He may be inexperienced. He may be plain. But Yuuri was not a fool. In order to banish winter, he needed to do what no other bride had done: extract spring from a god without kindness, without a concern for all the millions starving, freezing, or murdering their compatriots for what resources remained. It could never be so simple as to just _ ask_. He must find out the truth—and many secrets came to light, Yuuri knew, in the intimate realm of pillow talk.

For his family—for the world—Yuuri had to be brave.

“A-Anything?” He asked, allowing his voice to tremble.

“Anything,” the god said.

_ Liar. _

A feather-light kiss grazed Yuuri’s neck, a jolt of ice racketing down his throat. The grip on Yuuri’s back slid lower, squeezing firmly and dragging him impossibly closer; the cold and the suddenness made Yuuri jolt with surprise. 

“You are a virgin,” the god said, voice a rumble as he trailed kisses along Yuuri’s skin—his neck, his collarbones, his nipples.

Yuuri shivered. Again. This perpetual chill must be his reality now; perhaps he should try to get used to it. He gritted his teeth, swallowed thickly, and replied: “I’m not.”

“Mm. I see. Do you enjoy lying?” The winter king asked. He glanced up at Yuuri’s reddened face, cheek pressed to Yuuri’s sternum, and smiled.

“N—” Yuuri flinched as the god took his half-hard cock in hand, the touch more exploratory and curious than focused. “N-No. I don’t. And I’m not. And won’t you—will you listen to me? I am _ cold_.”

The god laughed. “All right, all right.” He laid Yuuri back on the bed. Yuuri’s head fell onto the plush white pillows; under his back, the winter king’s cloak was soft yet rugged against his skin, a remnant of the wilds tamed and draped along his shoulders like a bride-price. 

The god looked down at him quietly, Yuuri’s legs still splayed against his thighs. His hand slid from Yuuri’s back to his side, at the slight curve of his waist; his thumb rubbed the skin next to his belly button.

“So slim,” the god said. “You must eat well. I’d like to see you sturdier.”

“Oh, well,” Yuuri grumbled. He refused to meet the god’s eye. “If you’d like me sturdier.”

The god’s smile wasn’t hollow then—another coy, teasing grin. “It will make you happy, I think, to eat well and fatten up.”

They were swiftly approaching the limits of Yuuri’s patience. “Will you stop _ looking _ at me?”

“No,” the winter king said. His hands settled on Yuuri’s thighs, framing yet not quite touching his groin; he used the grip to ease Yuuri’s legs into the air, his knees towards the pillows. As Yuuri gasped at the new position—he was far more exposed now—the winter king smiled and said: “After all... we’re just getting to know each other.”

Yuuri kept silent. Only covered his face in his hands; tried to hide the glowing-pink blush emanating from his cheeks.

When he felt the god’s cool breath against his cock—then wafting down to his entrance—Yuuri tried and failed to silence a sharp whimper.

“Beautiful,” the winter king said. He kissed Yuuri’s erect cock, as though in praise. “You’re afraid. I can see it. Yet you offer yourself to me anyway.”

Yuuri’s irregular exhales were audible against his hand, gusting from his nostrils with his mouth clamped shut. 

“And even though you’ve already demanded much,” the god said, glancing up at Yuuri with ice-blue eyes, “you haven’t asked me for what you truly want. What they all want, these days.”

_ Spring. Spring. Spring. _

“Why?” The god trailed kisses down Yuuri’s cock; his mouth hovered just above Yuuri’s twitching hole. “Why don’t you ask me for it? Go on.”

Yuuri said nothing. The god’s tongue laved over his hole, then barely penetrated with a single wet push; yet even then, Yuuri held himself desperately silent. The trembling of his body was uncontrollable now—a pathetic whimpering and shudders in the dim.

When the god lifted his head again, the wetness he left behind made Yuuri shake all the more. “Look at you. _ Myshka. _ You are trying so hard to be brave.”

_ Cruel_, Yuuri thought, glaring at him despite his shivers. _ Heartless. _

The god’s hand landed on Yuuri’s face. Somehow, it seemed warmer than before, even against the heated crimson of Yuuri’s cheek. “Ah, but now I’ve made you angry. Do you want me to stop?”

Slowly, the glare eased from Yuuri’s eyes—replaced by curiosity and doubt. “If I wanted it,” Yuuri whispered, voice crackly, “would you really go, and leave me be? Forever?”

The winter king smiled that hollow smile. “Yes.”

“Then,” Yuuri said, glancing away as he hesitated, “if I asked. Would you be kinder to me?”

A spark reached the god’s eye—perhaps interest; perhaps amusement. Either way, he nodded.

“Well,” Yuuri mumbled. He squirmed under the god’s watch; hooked one ankle, bashfully, against the god’s back. “Then… you can stay. If you are gentle with me.”

“Oh, Yuuri,” the god replied, a small, knowing smirk alighting his strange features. “You don’t even realize it, do you? How erotic you are.”

Yuuri’s brow downturned. “How—_mm!” _

A sudden kiss silenced him, the god’s mouth plush and cool against his lips. Although it had embarrassed him before, Yuuri was glad now that the winter king was still clothed. The feeling of the fine furs and velvet and wool against Yuuri’s bare skin was delicious, warming, even with the lord of winter pressing him down into the bed. Against his better judgment and pride, Yuuri snaked his arms around his husband’s broad shoulders, reveling in the contact and trapping in even more heat. 

“I will be gentle with you,” the god said, a promise delivered amidst kisses and hurried gropes— “though I cannot promise I won’t be greedy.”

_ I expect nothing less_, Yuuri thought, and nodded, his forehead pressed to his husband’s.

He opened Yuuri with all the care and gentleness promised: starting with his tongue, then a slick finger, then another. Yet Yuuri thought that hints of cruelty must have thrummed beneath the surface, for the god would stop and wait at his every flinch, every sudden tightening, until Yuuri had settled and gone pliant again—even if the clenching was from pleasure alone. The patience was more maddening than comforting; it reminded Yuuri that, for one of them, they had all the time in the world.

The winter king had three sopping fingers buried inside him when Yuuri finally groaned his annoyance. “Ah, can’t you—just—hurry?” His voice caught as the god’s touch pressed at just the right depth, the perfect angle, and Yuuri clamped down involuntarily.

“No, _ myshka_,” said the winter king, tsking and halting yet again. “It is not so simple, to go from fingers right to cock.”

Yuuri’s eyes rolled skyward—not just because of that insistent, glorious pressure, but because he was fairly sure the god was gloating now. “I’m sure it’s not that drastic a change.”

“Oh. Then, in that case,” the god said, casual. 

Yuuri glanced down when he felt a new, much more substantial presence—the god’s cockhead prodding at his entrance.

Yuuri blinked. “Oh.”

With one slow, easing press, his husband’s cock began to pry him apart. Yuuri took in a sharp sip of breath; his entire body locked in unease and fear. 

“Shh,” the god whispered, pulling away. His hands returned to stroke and massage Yuuri’s legs, to rub soothingly at his cock and slickened entrance. “It’s all right. I told you I would be gentle.”

Yuuri nodded. So he had said—and so he had been, thus far.

The god smiled softly, as though with fondness. Yuuri almost thought to believe it. “Do you want my fingers, or my mouth?”

Yuuri’s face pinched in embarrassment. He looked away. “I wouldn’t know.”

Yuuri gasped as the god’s cock prodded him again, a slow and bulging pressure that sent his breathing ragged. “My mouth, I think,” the god said, seeming all too pleased with Yuuri’s obvious undoing. “You moan so sweetly on my tongue.”

Fire and humiliation blazed through Yuuri’s veins. “I—I do not.”

The god hummed; his cool breath wafted onto Yuuri’s hole, had him twitching again. “If you say so.”

Yuuri’s legs fell over the god’s shoulders as he resumed—tongue pressing inside, loosening Yuuri with slow laps and wet, insistent pushes. Yuuri panted at the contact, eyes sliding half-lidded and clouding over; even the temperature worked to weaken him, cool breath and saliva never granting Yuuri the comfort of forgetting who delved inside him, or allowing him the escape of drifting awareness.

Yuuri’s hole twitched helplessly at the open air before his husband’s cock again pushed against him.

The pressure this time was welcome, a yearned-for indulgence. Yuuri’s mouth dropped open. To have that fat cockhead push even a little further inside, to pop him open and hold him apart—what a satisfaction it would be, to sense that cool pressure deeper within…

The god sighed, sounding quietly pleased. He reached up to place one then two kisses against Yuuri’s jawline. “Nearly there,” he said.

The licking continued. Yuuri’s limbs were liquid gold. His mind was a shadowed, boiling, white-hot turmoil. He stroked shaky hands over the god’s head. Tingling fingers eased through the winter king’s pale hair.

When his husband next pressed his cock against Yuuri’s entrance, Yuuri tried to hold still and open, willing his body to allow it and bear down. His rim stretched over the cockhead easily, hungrily—and the god kept his legs high and wide, murmuring encouragements into the gasping quiet. “That’s it, Yuuri. That’s right. Just like that.”

Yuuri gasped, high and quick, to feel that cock finally push inside.

Immediately, the god moved to pull out. Yuuri sobbed and grabbed at the god’s dark, soft kaftan, drawing him closer. “No,” Yuuri whispered, begged, his eyes watering with desperation. “Stay.”

“I will not hurt you,” the winter king said; brisk fingertips stroked down the side of Yuuri’s blazing-hot cheek. “It will be easier, gentler on you—”

“_No_,” Yuuri insisted. But his frustration was tempered by the new presence within him, holding him open. His breathing shuddered. “Please….”

The winter king kissed him again—a cool press of lips against Yuuri’s forehead. “Whatever you wish of me, _ myshka_.”

As he slid deeper, it was easy, Yuuri’s body worked pliant and slick. Yuuri sighed and squirmed at the intrusion. The god’s cock was surely colder than a mortal man’s, but it did not bring discomfort; if anything, the contrast of their temperatures forced Yuuri to sense the contact even more intimately.

“Are you in pain?” The god asked. His hands eased up and down Yuuri’s legs, a smooth and soft petting that had Yuuri gladly resting in his grasp.

“No,” Yuuri breathed. His tongue was nearly useless, a lump of clumsy lead.

The god smiled down at him, fondness and lust lifting his mouth. He placed his thumbs in the divot behind Yuuri’s knees. “Do you want me to move?”

Yuuri shut his eyes, focusing on the cock stuffed inside him. As he shuddered again, tightening, he could feel intimately where he was forced open; he took a long breath, then swallowed, trying to regain some semblance of clarity. “You c-can move,” Yuuri whispered.

A single long, wet, rocking thrust chased the clarity right out of Yuuri’s head. “That’s not what I asked,” the god said, teasing—and began a slow, creaking rhythm. 

But Yuuri couldn’t reply. He could barely recall anything past that pressure, that presence, that beat set near the base of his stomach and ricocheting up his spine.

“Mm—ah!” Yuuri gasped out, the noises easily bursting past the shield of a sweat-damp hand. The slap of the god’s rocking, building thrusts against his skin resounded in the dark. At each collision, Yuuri’s breathing hitched; his stomach churned with a dark, building, urgent pleasure, bone-deep, that he’d never experienced or even imagined before.

Despite his shyness—and on a particularly slow, deep, and adamant thrust, with a wet and needy noise forced from his mouth—Yuuri opened his eyes. The god loomed above him, his pale gaze unblinking and his lips wet. His cool hands were hooked beneath Yuuri’s knees, holding his legs aloft; his thumbs caressed the soft skin there. But he didn’t look at Yuuri’s face. 

Yuuri’s stomach swooped as he realized: he was watching their joining.

Yuuri whimpered as the thought sent him tight, a blaze of fire shooting through his veins and counteracting the cold of the god’s hands. Above him, the winter king chuckled, easing his thrusts until they slowed to a halt.

“Shh,” he soothed. One hand lowered to rub at Yuuri’s stretched, wetted rim. “Looser, _ myshka_. Relax. That’s it. Good.”

His voice was so gentle, so doting. Yuuri shut his eyes and covered his face as he went even tighter.

That chuckle was louder now. “Yuuri,” he said scoldingly. “Won’t you listen to your husband? I told you. Relax for me.”

Yuuri wouldn’t acknowledge the god’s requests. Or the tears welling in his own eyes. He _ wouldn’t_. He tried to swallow down his embarrassment; then said: “I don’t like this position anymore. Let me turn onto my—”

“No,” the god said. “I want to see you. I want to see what you like.”

“You _ do _ see what I like,” Yuuri snapped, burying his face into the dark cloak sprawled beneath him. “But then you stop to tease me, and tell me…” he trailed off, unwilling to repeat it aloud.

“Ah,” the winter king breathed. Yuuri saw the flash of delight in his eyes. “So that’s it.”

“What…” Yuuri whispered—but then the breath was stolen from his lungs as the god resumed his careful thrusts. 

Slow, so slow—enough to barely pull at Yuuri’s rim; then to stuff him deep and gradual, bottoming out with the kiss of the god’s clothing against his skin. And all along, the winter king watched. His thumb pressed slow circles and gentle caresses against Yuuri’s stretched rim. “Beautiful,” he said, and it sounded sincere. “Lovely. You’re doing so well, _ myshka_.”

Yuuri sobbed at the praise, eyes screwed shut and mouth openly panting. “No; don’t say it—”

“Beautiful,” the god said, happily ignoring Yuuri’s humiliation. “My beautiful bride. You fit around me perfectly. You take me so well.”

True tears escaped Yuuri’s dark eyes as a vivid flush crawled along his face, neck, and chest. His hands made fists in the cloak; broken, needy moans fell from his gaping mouth. His legs needed no guidance to remain wide and high. The god grasped him around the waist, shoving Yuuri harder, farther onto his cock, pushing as deep inside as physically possible—and then remaining.

“Yuuri,” the god whispered. The hand on Yuuri’s waist floated down, resting on Yuuri’s lower belly; made slow, little circles there. “Can you feel how deep I am?”

Other than those soft caresses, the god did not move. Yuuri realized that he wouldn’t again—not until he received a response. Yuuri bit his wobbling lip. He ignored the wetness dripping from his eyes, his nose; from his mouth and onto his chin. 

“Yes.”

The god hummed. He began drawing those slow circles into Yuuri’s insides, hips gradually, carefully swiveling. “Do you like it? Don’t lie to me.”

Full. So full. And the depth, and the devastating satisfaction at being pried apart. Yuuri sniffled; nodded. “I do,” he admitted, throwing an arm over his eyes to hide himself. He tried to writhe on the cock skewering him, to afford himself more friction; but the god stopped him with a harsh, anchoring pull on his hip. “Y-Yes. I like it.”

Yuuri gasped wetly as a cool hand wrapped around his cock. 

“Will you come like this?” 

Without thrusts. Just the winter king, his husband, talking to him gently and stroking his cock and reaching deep, deep inside—with Yuuri stuffed, unable to escape, penetrated at depths no one had ever touched before; that no one else would ever again touch—

“Yes,” Yuuri said brokenly, his back curling into a tight arch. “Oh, oh—yes, I’m—”

His entire body tightened into a vicious, trembling vice. It was as though Yuuri’s entire existence, for that moment, was centered on that one point of contact: where he was fucked and full; where he squeezed and warmed and shuddered over the entire length of his husband’s cock.

When Yuuri next came to awareness, his pulse was roaring in his ears, his husband still whispered sweet things, and that cock was still buried deep inside him.

The winter king kissed the tears away from his face. “Perfect, Yuuri. You were so beautiful.”

Yuuri’s fingertips grazed his husband’s face, a barely-there touch that drew the god close. “Warm,” Yuuri said, stroking the god’s cheek. “You are….”

“Yes,” the god said, pressing more eager kisses to Yuuri’s face. “Because of you.”

The night carried on. The god remained inside him, even when he pulled Yuuri up into his lap; even when he laid back, rubbed broad hands up and down Yuuri’s sides, back, and stomach, and coaxed him into rocking back and forth, steadily and slowly, until Yuuri came apart on his cock again.

The night carried on—Yuuri wet, stretched, and sobbing, bouncing on his husband’s lap; and when Yuuri’s thighs fatigued, raised and dropped harshly by the god’s own hands. It was easy to forget, in those hours lost in one another’s bodies—drowned in tears and sweet kisses; basking in whole-hearted praise—that he bedded the winter king. Such was the gentleness and enthusiasm and hunger that Yuuri saw, like an eager newlywed taken by honeymoon. 

It was even easy for Yuuri to forget about spring.

The night carried on.

Yuuri fell asleep in his husband’s arms, dozing until lavender light tugged at the horizon. Then the god was gone. 

And winter remained.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> COLD COCK COLD COCK COLD COCK
> 
> ok. now. about some of the tags...
> 
> dubious consent - I think it's fair to say that the sex in this chapter is... uh... problematic. Yuuri consents, but for the wrong reasons: he wants something from Viktor, who must be "satisfied" in order for winter to end. there's a massive amount of pressure behind his decision and it's a fraught, high-stress situation. as such, their sexual relationship is founded on pretense and burden instead of affection, which is a topic that will be addressed later in the story.
> 
> full disclosure, death will be a major theme of this fic. but that's not to say it will be very dark. one thing I really enjoy about a lot of old fairy and folktales is that the way they handle death is very nuanced; it's not always depicted as the end, nor is it something inherently horrifying or scary. sometimes it's even a power that humans have over gods. I'd like to explore themes like that in this fic. (and ofc, I'll tag appropriately.)
> 
> thanks for reading! the next chapter is written, but I want to get farther into the draft before I post it.
> 
> check out my tumblr @pandabomb for more info on my writing :)
> 
> EDIT: I've added the tags "sexual coercion" and "implied rape." The implied rape refers to the implication that Sara and Viktor have sex the night before he meets Yuuri. that doesn't actually happen, but I understand that readers will infer this and it may be upsetting. (when Sara says "Whatever I said, even if I begged, it didn’t—” she is referring to asking for spring. She tried to reason with him and it did not work.)
> 
> I've also added some tags for Chris's relationship with Viktor. I won't have Viktor sleep with anyone but Yuuri in the course of this story, but this is something of a harem situation, so the tag is fair.


	2. A Beast, Black-Eyed and Black-Soled

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> PLEASE remember that this is dark fic. heed the tags.
> 
> enjoy!!

Yuuri spent half the day in bed. He did not eat. He did not bathe. 

Through the morning, the sheets reeked of sex and his own sweat. When Yuuri shifted, turning from his side to his back, he felt the trickle of his husband’s seed easing from his body. It did not disgust him as much as Yuuri would like. He thought he deserved this—to be messed, filthy, and used, a deflowered thing who had spent the night moaning and squealing, now lying defiled and useless in the evidence of his failures.

But inevitably, he had to leave the bed to relieve himself. The castle took it upon itself to change the sheets then. Once Yuuri was relieved, the bath even started rushing on its own. So Yuuri picked himself up. He bathed; he drank water. He asked for a small bowl of miso soup and a scoop of plain rice and ate on the floor of his bedroom.

As another night steadily approached, noon easing directly into evening, panic curled low and bitter in the pit of Yuuri’s stomach. He paced. He worried his lip. He wiped his sweating palms against his pants. No matter what he did, Yuuri could not banish a choking sense of dread. It coiled his every muscle tense; sent his breathing irregular and tight.

He could not see the god again. He could not.

Even the other brides were a burden too great—a crowd with knowing, lingering eyes, recognizing Yuuri’s incompetence and his complacency in winter’s ceaseless raging. Yuuri had failed. They would know. Right away, at one glance, they would know. What else could he possibly offer, but his body? And it had not been enough. He burdened them; he burdened this entire world with his inadequacy. 

He must flee. Anything was better than this. Death, even.

“I need a parka,” Yuuri said, voice somehow far too loud and harsh in the quiet. He shut his eyes against another wave of breath-stealing dread. “I-I need—boots. Snowshoes. And anything else that will keep me from….”

Freezing. A swifter end. But why wouldn’t he go out naked, just to get the entire ordeal over with? Or ask for a blade now, to settle into the bath and finish it all with luxurious efficiency—

A set of new outdoor clothes were lying atop the bed.

Yuuri’s hands trembled so much that he could hardly dress. He had to stop, multiple times, to hang his head between his knees and try to breathe.

This was what he deserved: a slow end in the frozen, barren white, surrounded by roaring winds and restless flurries. He knew this, deep in the innermost sanctum of his heart. The world was dying. Winter wouldn’t leave. Yuuri could do nothing. And if his family starved, then Yuuri would willingly walk into obscurity with both eyes open.

Yuuri stood from the bed, fully dressed in a bulky, hooded, fur-lined parka. As he left the room, he stared at the floor to find his way.

He did not look up until the castle doors creaked open in front of him.

{~}

Yuuri did not need the snowshoes. The ice and snow had all hardened together, supporting his famine-wracked body with ease.

The wintry evening was quiet—far more silent and unsettling than Yuuri had expected. He had journeyed to the castle with two companions, so he hadn’t noticed it. Now his own pulse seemed thundering in his ears, even as he found a brittle peace in the simple human truth of walking forward. 

His steps sounded distant, crackly, and muffled through the thick insulation of the parka’s hood.

_ Crunch. Crunch. Crunch. Crunch. _

Walk forward. Towards the grey abyss. Yuuri followed the inevitability of his own footsteps, the preordained imprints of his boots in the snow.

A cloak of gold enrobed the world as the sun rushed towards the horizon. 

Yuuri stopped to take it in. Night was close. His decision was made. If he cried now, the tears would only halt on his cheek; they would remain there until his heart went mute and his chest went still.

Without warning, an unseen force shoved Yuuri face-first into the snow.

“Ow,” Yuuri mumbled, rubbing his face and tapping the snow off his glasses. He stumbled back up and looked around, hoping to understand what on earth had just happened. But he saw nothing and no one—only the swarming, blinding, rich hue of golden twilight.

Yuuri took another step forward—and heard what sounded like poorly muffled snickering.

A moment later, his face was in a new patch of snow.

“_What_,” Yuuri bit out, lifting his head and looking about for the source. He still saw no one, but had a feeling of what to say anyway. “Come out. I know you’re there.”

An unfamiliar face, pretty and green-eyed, popped into Yuuri’s vision—hanging upside down. “No you don’t,” the stranger accused. Golden hair like the dusk hung down below the young stranger’s face. 

In shock, Yuuri fell onto his butt.

The stranger frowned at him from above. Upside-down, it almost looked like a smile. “Are you concussed?”

Yuuri blinked, then chuckled, half-sure to be dreaming. “You know such a word?”

“Why wouldn’t I?” The stranger muttered. “I’m older than you.”

“I’m sure,” Yuuri replied, laughter still tinting his tone. “But… it’s a very human word.”

“Hm.” The stranger’s body rotated so they were lying belly-down midair, yet that face didn’t move, remaining just a bit higher than Yuuri’s. “And you’re doing a very human thing. You’re going off to die.”

Yuuri would have thought that putting it so plainly would cause him pain—perhaps a swoop of dread, or a blow to the gut. But the statement, blunt as it was, was only fitting. He nodded. “I am.”

The floating stranger rolled their eyes, then their whole body, showing the ground their back. “That’s stupid. You have such a tiny lifespan anyway. Why cut it short?”

“I’ve… done something horrible,” Yuuri explained, though he did not want to. “I came here to resurrect spring. I was supposed to satisfy the winter king. But I don’t think I can.”

An upside-down sneer turned the stranger’s pretty face grotesque. “Oh. _ Him_.”

At first, Yuuri was surprised. But then he realized that it was to be expected. One immortal should know the other, after all.

“He gets all these dumb humans to play with, and what does he do? He wastes them. Like a big frosty idiot. Not to mention that bargain he forgot he made with me—”

“Who are you?” Yuuri asked, desperate to not speak of the winter king.

The stranger sighed crossly. “I wondered if you’d ask. Took you long enough.”

“I’m sorry,” Yuuri said, trying to be polite. “You caught me by surprise.”

The stranger snickered. “I got you twice. You didn’t see me coming at all—”

“What is your name?” Yuuri interrupted. If he was going to die soon, he wouldn’t spend it listening to another god gloat.

The stranger’s body whirled again, this time settling into a crossed-leg position a few inches from the ground. “I’ve got loads of those. Think you can guess a single one?”

Yuuri hummed, considering. Then—with creaky, cold-tightened legs—he wobbled to a stand.

“Hey!” The stranger snapped, floating after Yuuri as he began marching again. “Don’t just walk off!”

“Sorry,” Yuuri said, steps steady. “I don’t have much time left. I’d like to spend it moving.”

“Yuri!” 

Yuuri halted. Turned to stare at the stranger in dumbfounded silence.

The stranger toyed with one foot, as if bashful. Even their clothing was ethereal, like the wool of a clouded ewe embroidered with thread spun from true gold. “That’s one of my names.”

Yuuri’s laugh was so sudden, it was nearly a cough. “Is it?”

The stranger, Yuri, nodded.

“So is mine.”

Yuri frowned. “I don’t like that.”

Yuuri smiled, shrugged.

As Yuuri started walking again, and the sun crept closer to the lip of the world, Yuri flitted to float alongside him. “You know, you shouldn’t take the winter king so seriously. He’s not very scary.”

Yuuri noted, with a strained smile, the inclusion of _ very _ in that statement. He sighed. “Do you know what will happen to me?”

“Hm?”

“Death, I mean. What comes later.”

“Ah.” Yuri’s mouth twisted in thought. “Not really. Sort of. There’s a doorway, see, and I don’t know where it is.”

“Oh.”

“Nobody looks scared, when they go through,” Yuri said. “Well. Usually they look scared beforehand. But never when they go through.”

“I see.” A blanket of dread, choking terror, and unspeakable relief swept through Yuuri like a splash. “Thank you for telling me.”

“Whatever. I still think you’re rushing it.”

Yuuri let the silence lay for a half-minute or so. Then he was compelled to speak again. “Do you know what I’ll miss the most? Other than my family, of course. And the sun.”

“What?”

He sent the golden Yuri a fleeting, bittersweet smile. “My mother’s cooking. She made one dish called katsudon that was better than anything you’d ever taste.”

“I’ve never heard of it.”

“You should try it,” Yuuri said, grinning brightly as best he could. “One of these days.”

“Yeah, yeah,” Yuri grumbled, fussing with a foot again. “By the way. You know you’re being followed?”

_ “What?” _

Yuuri peered back the way they’d come, dark eyes squinting in the low golden glow. His distance vision had always been poor, even with his glasses—so, unsurprisingly, he saw nothing. But slowly, gradually, he saw a lumbering movement flickering in the hazy distance of the white.

“It’s the beast,” Yuri said, matter-of-fact. “It’s been following you for awhile now.”

Yuuri looked up at the immortal with terror and bewilderment on his face. “Why?”

“Beats me,” Yuri answered. “Maybe it wants to eat you. Sometimes it does that.”

“Eats people?”

Yuri shrugged. “Sure.”

Yuuri’s breathing hitched—higher, faster, thinner. He turned back around and started hurrying through the snow, fast as he could go.

“Wha—hey! What’s the issue!” The golden Yuri zipped into Yuuri’s forevision, green eyes glinting with the last remnants of dusk. “You’re out here to die anyway!”

“I know!” Yuuri replied shakily. “I just—I don’t know! I’m still afraid!”

“Oh, I see,” Yuri said, half-grinning with satisfaction. “You don’t _ actually _ want to die.”

“No!” Yuuri yelled. Even though he couldn’t get much louder, his voice fell flat in the endless hush of the ice fields. “Of course not! I want to live! But if spring doesn’t come, everyone else will die! And I can’t live with the guilt of eating and sleeping in a warm bed while everyone else _ starves!” _

“There’s still some time left,” Yuri said, tilting upside-down again. “I know humans die fast, but they’re tough, in their own way. You could keep trying a bit longer.”

“Try,” Yuuri muttered, gasping from his wide, useless, loping steps. “Try, and—what if I only fail again? I don’t think—I don’t know if I could bear that.”

“Come oooon,” Yuri groaned, making a full rotation midair. “Die now, die later. Who cares. At least give it your best shot. That’s the one thing you humans have going for you: you really don’t know how to give up.”

As Yuuri’s steps slowed, muscles fatigued and lungs lanced with bitter cold, he realized that tears had begun falling on his cheeks. They froze instantly atop his face, biting at his skin painfully. He looked to Yuri with an ugly grimace. “How am I supposed to try again if I’m eaten out here?”

“Dunno,” Yuri said. The sun slipped entirely below the horizon. “Well. Bye.”

With that, Yuri was gone, and Yuuri was standing alone in a howling barren wilderness.

Yuuri gasped, breathing fast into the slow darkness tumbling over the tundra. He was losing the light. Even after the beast gave up and left—going wherever such things go when they slept—Yuuri would be stranded out here, with no true markers on the ground and scattered clouds blocking the stars.

One man in an endless white. A dark pinprick of warmth in an eternity of cold.

Yuuri’s hands clenched. Trembled. This was all his fault. But he couldn’t cry. If he cried, it would only freeze him faster—and no matter what happened, Yuuri refused to die standing still.

He walked.

It grew darker. Colder. His eyelids drooped; his hands, nose, and feet went numb. When Yuuri tripped over the roughened ice, or wobbled at the sea churning deep and restless beneath the floes under his feet, he got back up. Each time he fell, he would rise slower than the last.

In the morning, he would be able to see his footsteps. He could go back. He could keep trying. He only had to last the night. Yuuri told himself this, over and over. 

But no matter how he tried, he couldn’t quite believe it.

“I’m going to die,” Yuuri whispered. His voice was inaudible in the thick, whining, impenetrable darkness. He tilted his head down, desperately trying to keep the unstoppable tears from hitting his skin. “I’m—I’m really going to—”

He was cold. So cold. The ice was harsh, crunching under the weight of his feet, his knees, his violently shuddering hands. It was cold. It was cold. He was going to die.

Yuuri sobbed—crawling when his legs failed; weeping into the blank, uncaring night. He cried and begged for the sun’s return; shattered in grief to realize he would never see it again.

The snow was bitter against the skin of his cheek.

There was a doorway.

Yuuri stood in a forest. High, dark pines reached towards the sky; they quieted the wind and blotted out the stars. The air was warmer here. Even the snow was softer, shifting into small powdery drifts under the slightest turns of Yuuri’s boots. 

The doorway was not made by human hands. Over millennia, long before families gathered around fires—revealing to one another secrets of the winter king, his castle, and the beast that guarded it—this doorway stood open and wide in the depths of this strange forest. It was the arch of many pines felled together, tumbling into a portal with a strange and unknowable maw.

Yuuri stared into it calmly. It did not frighten him. He knew, somehow, that it was much warmer on the other side. 

A slow, gentle touch slid into the crook of Yuuri’s elbow.

“No, _ myshka_,” a voice said—one Yuuri recognized; one Yuuri had heard in his ear, whispering sweet words and praises until dawn had pulled them apart. “Not yet.”

The hand on his elbow pulled him back. So Yuuri followed.

He heard again the whistling gusts rushing over the ice fields. He felt two broad, gentle hands holding him aloft. An inexplicable warmth reached Yuuri’s heart; it seemed to emanate all around him, through him, pouring from a tender and steady touch.

Yuuri slept, mind quiet. He did not dream of doorways.

{~}

When Yuuri awoke, he was back in the castle, in his warm clean bed.

He lifted his head and squinted in the low light. Even craning his neck up, he felt sore and groggy, but not so much that he stopped. His glasses were folded on the side-table; Yuuri slid them onto his face. The lanterns flickered as yellow teardrops in their sconces. The bedding was white and fresh, with the rabbit-skin blanket heaped over top. But something rougher, thicker, and warmer swaddled him within the folds of the bed.

Yuuri peeked beneath the covers. He was wrapped in the winter king’s cloak.

His fingertips ran over the pelt slowly. Over and over, back and forth. He remembered a forest with a doorway—a threshold built of boughs, bark, and needles. He half-remembered a gentle voice whispering in the dark, and broad, warm hands carrying him close.

As Yuuri rose from bed, he kept the cloak hoisted on his shoulders. It could be chilly even indoors.

Time was strange here, so Yuuri did not know whether it was day or how long he’d slept. Again he ate in his bedroom, keen to avoid the other brides. He had no desire for their company and gazes, nor the rich, foreign delicacies of the dining room. Once he ate his fill, Yuuri asked for a red bean bun; he tucked it, still warm and wrapped in paper, into a pocket of his parka.

Yuuri peeked his head out of the bedroom door, dark hair falling into his face. He looked down either end of the hallway. When he saw no one, he slipped from the room—boots donned; dark cloak wrapped about his shoulders—and crept quietly towards the castle doors. 

He was permitted past the dining room, so Yuuri assumed it was day. Yet as his boots clicked onto the icy gray threshold atop the castle steps, the only light that greeted him was a periwinkle tint in the faraway sky.

Dawn. 

For many minutes, Yuuri watched its gradual swell with an elated grin. So he would see the sun again after all.

Buoyant with life and a second chance, Yuuri rushed to the staircase, his grip on the railing a clumsy afterthought. When he inevitably slipped, his unflappable laughter echoed loud and clear along the stone and ice of the castle’s facade.

“Yuri!” He called out joyously, hopefully. Although the dawn wasn’t golden, Yuuri thought that a lavender sky held great promise, especially for a floating trickster sprite. “Are you there? Can you hear me? I am alive!”

“That’s a surprise.”

The voice rang clear right behind Yuuri’s head—so sudden and present that Yuuri spun too fast, lost his footing, and teetered over the latter half of the staircase. But just before Yuuri could fall, a thin, delicate hand reached out and seized him by the cloak.

Little Yuri held him aloft—green eyes wide, straw-yellow hair tinted by the periwinkle glow. Their brow crinkled in angry alarm. “You _ idiot_. So eager to see the doorway? This early in the morning?”

Yuuri gasped in relief. Grinned shakily. For all his joy at being alive, a near-fatal tumble was a sobering experience. “Not at all.”

“Well,” Yuri replied, and yanked at the cloak until Yuuri stood upright. “Be more careful.”

Yuuri smiled softly, tucking his mittened hands into the cloak’s thick warmth. “How did you know?”

“Know what?”

“The doorway,” Yuuri said. “I saw it.”

Yuri frowned deeper. “I didn’t. But I should have, considering how hard you’re working to die.”

Yuuri’s smile warmed. “I’m happy to see you too.”

Yuri grumbled incomprehensibly, floating down the staircase in lazy, aimless twists.

“Can we walk together?” Yuuri asked. He held the railing tighter then. “Until the sun has risen, of course.”

Yuri stopped, glancing over their shoulder with a startled gleam in those bright green eyes.

“You’re a liminal god, aren’t you?” The smile never quite left Yuuri’s face, even as he looked down to watch his steps on the roughened lower stairs. “You vanished when the sun was below the horizon. At first I thought that you just—I don’t know, lost interest. But you were very nice to me, even when I was being silly, so… I, well, I hoped you only left because you had to. Maybe you’re a god of twilight, since I’ve only seen you during dusk, and now dawn.”

There was a long pause of silence. Yuuri looked up to see Yuri staring at him strangely.

“Am I being silly again?” Yuuri asked.

“No,” Yuri responded. “But, well—yes. You are. You’re always stupid.”

A sly, fond, triumphant smile curled onto Yuuri’s lips. “I see.”

“What are you doing out here, anyway?” Yuri grumbled, a slight pink tone to their cheeks.

“I wanted to see the sun,” Yuuri admitted. He beamed, chuckling under his breath. “And I thought, if I was lucky, I might run into you again. Oh! I brought you something—”

As Yuuri fished the red bean bun from his pocket, Yuri scowled. “Stupid,” they mumbled. “Don’t tell me you think we’re friends now.”

“Why not?” Yuuri said, and hopped the last step onto the packed ice below. At the base of the stairs, Yuuri held the bun up with both hands, high enough for Yuri to see. “Here. For you. I know it isn’t much, but you kept me company when I needed a friend the most. I’ll never forget that. Thank you, Yuri.”

“You—I—” Yuri cast a reddened glare down at the bun in Yuuri’s hands, then down at the stairs. “You were just easy to see, that’s all,” they mumbled. When the little god lowered to pluck the bun from Yuuri’s hands, they reminded Yuuri of the street cats back in Hasetsu: following humans along the path, whining for attention, yet avoidant of any arrogant attempts to pat. “And the beast was skulking after you, so I was curious, and—wait. You do remember the beast, right? The creature that lurks around the castle by day?”

“Yes,” Yuuri said, nodding.

“And… it’s nearly day.”

“But we’re on the stairs,” Yuuri replied.

Nibbling on the bun, Yuri donned another annoyed expression. “So?”

“We didn’t see the beast before, when we first got here,” Yuuri explained. “I think it keeps away from the stairs, generally, to let brides enter the castle. Or maybe the castle itself won’t let it in. Sometimes I wonder if the castle is capable of that sort of thing—I mean, protecting its inhabitants like that.”

As he spoke, Yuuri swung along the very end of the bannister, one mittened hand hooked onto the pole. Yuri floated above and only offered a tired, quiet glare. 

Yuuri stared up at them. Their clothing was lovely today too, a cute pale kaftan with dark stitching. “Am I wrong?”

“Not… strictly,” Yuri admitted. They sighed, long and sharp. “But you shouldn’t wander around on assumptions. Not when you’re all squishy. And mortal.”

“Thank you,” Yuuri said, grinning all over again, “for worrying about me.”

Yuri grumbled more nonsense. Fussed with one of their slippers.

“Ah!” Yuuri gasped, free hand flinging out. “There it is!”

The first sliver of the sun burst yellow and radiant over the cusp of the horizon, a glint of joy dancing onto the top of the world. Yuuri laughed, and beamed, and wiped his mittens over his face to catch any errant tears before they had the chance to fall. 

“Uh-huh. There it is,” Yuri repeated. “The same thing I see all the time.”

“Isn’t it beautiful,” Yuuri breathed. He chuckled as he glanced away, rubbing at his sore eyes with the back of his hands.

“It’s… the sun.”

“You may be used to it,” Yuuri said, “but I don’t have many of these left, even if I manage to live many more years. But, well—I guess that’s what happens when you know you can die.”

“What are you talking about,” Yuri grumbled.

“Death,” Yuuri said plainly. “Ah, the horizon is already starting to waver—help me get higher, Yuri; I want to see it a little more clearly.”

As Yuuri scooted up onto the railing, standing atop it with a slight wobble, Yuri didn’t offer to stabilize him; perhaps they saw that Yuuri was doing just fine on his own. “That’s what I mean. What are you even talking about?”

Yuuri blinked at them. Looked back to the sun, a half-arc of gold in a lavender-yellow canvas. “You’re a god,” he said confusedly. “So you can never know death.”

“I am a god,” Yuri said, a deep frown on their fair face. “But I can die.”

As Yuuri shifted his weight—trying to see Yuri’s face a bit more clearly; they were floating higher by the moment—his back heel skidded off the smooth ice atop the bannister. He fell into the snow on the other side of the staircase with a dull _ whoomph_.

Yuuri’s laughter drifted up into the purpled sky. Yuri flitted down low, hovering close to rebuke him. “Idiot! You could have just climbed the stairs!”

“Oops,” Yuuri mumbled. He swiped one mittened hand over the flushed, chilly skin of cheeks. 

“This is exactly what I warned against!” Yuri continued, angry chatter quickening—determined to fit lots of scolding in before the sun arrived entirely. “You have no sense of—”

Yuuri wobbled to a stand. Brushing snow from the cloak, he caught sight of a set of footsteps imprinted in the white.

“—caution, or survival, even though you are _ very _ easy to kill—”

As Yuuri tread over the footsteps curiously, he saw something glint in the swiftly brightening dawn. He leaned down to swipe the snow from a curious lump on the ground. It was a silvery gauntlet.

“—listening to me? Wait. What are you….” Yuri trailed off, watching Yuuri walk away. They realized Yuuri’s intentions with a strangled gasp. “Wait. Wait, _no_, don’t go that way—”

Yuuri reached the termination of the footsteps, following the curve of a boulder into a small clearing.

There, crumpled and silent at the foot of the glacier’s sheer cliff-face, was a corpse dressed in a silver suit of armor. 

Streaks of frozen crimson were smeared beneath limbs torn and gnawed askew. The snow of the clearing had been kicked and unsettled thoroughly, the site of a great struggle; across the way, a fine sword lay half-buried and utterly clean within the shallow drifts.

“Yuuri,” a sharp voice yelled in his ear, “Yuuri! Go back to the stairs! Do it _ now!” _

Small, dainty hands tugged at the cloak—so frantic, so strong, that Yuuri nearly toppled over again. But then the hands were gone, and Yuuri was left standing in the clearing, staring at the body of a boy who had promised his sister the spring.

Dawn had passed. It was day. 

The light of the early sun was suddenly callous, merciless as it illuminated the corpse for all the world and passersby to see. Yuuri did not have the courage to go closer. From where he stood, he saw clearly the blood and the savagery with which the boy had met his end; he saw how a once living, steadfast soul had been ripped away, leaving only cold remnants preserved in the snow—a monument to the winter beast’s teeth and claws.

Yuuri’s heartbeat drummed swift and deafening. Yet it also seemed to slow and numb into silence.

He wondered how many others were scattered here at the foot of the castle. How many had tried, through their strength and cunning and heroism, to drag the winter beast through that unknowable maw of a dark doorway.

A loud snort burst through the silence—two large nostrils gusting a snuffling, grumbling breath.

Terror drenched Yuuri, holding him in place. He kept staring at the corpse. Listened for noise. Doomed thoughts raced through his mind: that he would soon join the others, sprawled and torn asunder so his guts shone and steamed in the crisp wintry air.

Snow crumpled and crunched under heavy footsteps—over Yuuri’s shoulder, blocking his route back to the stairs.

A glint in the light in the corner of his eye. _ The sword. _

It felt as though Yuuri snapped his own bones to scramble towards it. His hands fumbled shakily through the pale, shallow snowdrift. He had never been trained to use a sword, let alone one of a Western kind; but as those loud, lumbering footsteps drew ever closer, that didn’t matter. He clutched the hilt with clumsy hands, fingers swaddled tight in his mittens, and swiveled on his knees to raise the point of the blade in the winter beast’s direction.

One soft whimper escaped Yuuri’s throat at the sight of it.

Yuuri had seen bears before. They were large, brown or black creatures, shy and skittish at the noises of humans unless their young were threatened. The winter beast had the form of a bear, but was easily twice the size: jaws that could crush Yuuri’s ribcage in one lazy bite; paws wider than the shield left abandoned and useless at the corpse’s side; and large, black eyes that stared down at Yuuri with a dull animalistic hunger. The beast’s pelt was reminiscent of Yuuri’s dark cloak, but white as the snow. Its head was sloped smooth and low, shaped to allow the gusts of the ice fields to glance over and down its long, hunching back. 

Gaping at the beast in a trembling quiet, Yuuri managed to stop himself from dropping the sword—or messing himself right there, under the beast’s vacant gaze. Yuuri had never dared to think he was a hero. He had never had that sort of bravery: to stare down an unearthly beast, and not flinch at the horrid sight.

But when the winter beast stepped forward, Yuuri raised the sword higher regardless.

The beast hesitated. Its dark eyes glanced down at the tip of the sword; it sniffed the air, undoubtedly scenting the terror and sweat wafting from Yuuri in waves. 

One wide, black-soled paw swiped out, swatting at the blade—and knocked the entire sword, hilt and all, out of Yuuri’s shaky grip. 

Yuuri scrambled backwards until his hands and back hit the side of a boulder. The beast lumbered forward. It moved slowly, but every step had a long reach, and if Yuuri stayed put, he would surely be faced with the creature’s jaws within moments. Yuuri pushed off the stone at his back and tried to run into the clearing, then back to the stairs; he tried to use the creature’s bulk against it, hoping it was too large to turn quickly.

The creature took one step in Yuuri’s skittering direction and rammed its forehead against Yuuri’s chest, sending him sprawling into the snow.

Before Yuuri could press a hand to the ground and roll himself up, the creature’s breaths gusted onto him from above. Its eyes gleamed dark and unblinking in the morning light. Yuuri went still. His head was turned into the ground; his hands were raised, braced against his chest. He was beyond weeping or fighting. All he hoped for was a brief death, one that would send him back to that timeless forest without any slow or enduring pain.

The creature let out another long, gusting breath. Its nose poked Yuuri’s chest. It sniffed his cloak, snout shoved against his armpit—then sent Yuuri violently flinching as that dark, wet nose nudged into the hood of his parka, hot breath reaching through his clothing to the skin of his neck.

With a last huff, the creature’s head pulled back. It gazed down at Yuuri vacantly.

_ The cloak_, Yuuri thought—mind teetering towards hysterical. _ Could it recognize the scent of its master? _

Yuuri stared up at the beast. He did not dare to even twitch. 

After a few moments of stillness, the creature nudged him again, as though urging him to move.

Bewildered, Yuuri pulled himself along the ground until he could sit up. The beast did not seem angered or alarmed at his movements; it merely watched, those dark eyes unblinking and vacant. Yuuri drew his legs close to his chest.

When the beast stepped closer again, large face butting into Yuuri’s knees, Yuuri lifted one hand to push against the creature’s forehead—a reflexive act, as he had no real hope of stopping the beast’s movements. But the moment his hand rested on the beast’s head, those small white ears flicked up and swiveled forward.

Mind firmly hysterical, Yuuri stroked his hand along the creature’s forehead. Like one might pet a horse or a dog. Yuuri had done that many times, in Hasetsu—in happier times, with plentiful food and familiarity and warmth. There was an element of panic and horror to it, yes, but the intent was there: to gentle a treacherous creature with distrust and wildness in its heart. 

At the touch, the winter beast rumbled—a low, repetitive sound, almost like a cat’s purr—then sat down.

Yuuri stared.

When Yuuri’s hand halted, the rumble that thundered from the beast’s chest stuttered into a loud grunt-growl. So Yuuri petted. 

The pleased rumbling resumed. 

Yuuri did this for many minutes, lulling the beast into a sense of loose-limbed peace. As he kept stroking its head, the creature went from a polite sit to a belly-down sprawl; Yuuri watched it all with wide, terrified eyes, though some part of his mind did register the inherent ridiculousness of the situation.

Once the beast seemed quite placated and relaxed, its chest still rumbling and its black eyes drooping half-lidded, Yuuri adjusted himself a little further away. He kept patting the beast’s head as he shifted to get his knees beneath him.

The moment Yuuri eased into a low crouch, the winter beast tensed.

“Shh,” Yuuri whispered, smoothing his mitten a little more firmly from the beast’s brow to its forehead to the top of its long skull. “Shh. It’s all right.”

The creature seemed placated by this, but only just. Its rumble came back tentatively, yet its eyes remained wide open, assessing closely Yuuri’s every move.

“Good,” Yuuri said, voice smooth and betraying every terrified fiber in his body. “Very good. Shh. We’re calm, aren’t we? That’s right. We’re calm. The both of us.”

He stood upright. The creature’s head lifted, ears swiveling forward in alertness.

Yuuri leaned over to pat its forehead. “You’re, ah—a good beast. Right? Righ—_ ah_,” Yuuri gasped, flinching as the animal sat up. “No, no, shh, stay there. You don’t have to follow me. It’s okay.”

Even sitting, the beast was tall. Yuuri drew his hand back towards his chest, suddenly acutely aware of how simple it would be for the beast to snap his hand off at the wrist. It was just the right size, too—a nice little morsel for a mid-morning snack.

Yuuri took one long step away. The beast snorted, hot breath from its nostrils displacing the snow.

Another slow, careful step back. 

The beast stood up.

Yuuri raised both hands, patting at the air slowly and repetitively. “No, no, shh, stay down; it’s all right….”

The beast stepped forward, crossing the meager space Yuuri had forged between them in a single lope. One of its paws lifted and scooped Yuuri around the shoulders, pulling him in; he tensed, trembled, and pushed at the white-furred arm, to no avail.

“Oh no, oh gods, please, wait—” Yuuri cut off as the creature rubbed its face against his head. He flinched and jolted to spit out a bit of loose white fur. “Please don’t… eat me.”

Yuuri went entirely silent as the creature’s jaws opened and closed onto his shoulder. But it didn’t bite. It only seemed to be… gumming, as though Yuuri were a toy, or it merely wanted more of Yuuri’s attention. Wide-eyed, Yuuri lifted one hand and patted blindly over his shoulder—onto the winter beast’s giant head. The rumble of its chest came back to life, a loud and bizarre noise in the frigid mid-morning air.

While they sat together in the light, the winds blew to and fro, turning so that a brisk gust arrived over the long stretch of the horizon. The winter beast lifted its head high, scenting the air; it made snuffling noises, considering what new smells were invisible to Yuuri’s blunt human senses.

And Yuuri—still cornered beneath one of its mighty paws, but noticing the beast’s apparent distraction—maneuvered the beast’s arm until he was released.

Of course, his quiet escape troubled the creature. It snuffled and grumbled loudly, moving to follow Yuuri after he’d set his sights on the route to the staircase. Yet when the winter beast loomed in his wake, Yuuri threw a stiff arm in its path, pushing one mittened palm onto the creature’s broad forehead. 

“No,” Yuuri said. Prolonged fear had made him tired and angry. “Stop this.”

The creature grumbled. Sat down heavily. 

When it swiped a paw out to try and pull him back, Yuuri dodged and shoved away its reach. “_No_,” he repeated, firmer. “Leave me be.”

Yuuri turned to walk back to the stairs. But he knew better than to take his eyes off a predator. Always he kept the beast in his sightline, watching as it stalked behind him—a giant, lumbering, white-pelted escort. 

Finally, _ finally_—his heart leaping from his ribs; his chilled body coiled tight with stress—Yuuri’s feet alit onto the first stair. Then the second, and third. Once he had ascended a considerable height up the staircase, Yuuri glanced back to seek the winter beast, half-fearful that he had been wrong—that the creature had followed him up, regardless of Yuuri’s suspicions of the creature’s boundaries and the castle’s power.

But there it was, at the base of the staircase. It sat and stared up at him with its back paws splayed and its front paws perched forward, like a child waiting for a story.

Yuuri blinked down at it. Allowed a timid relief to seep into his mind. 

He climbed the stairs. Even as he reached the top, with only a few more footfalls til the door, Yuuri could sense those black, animalistic eyes following his back.

The moment he left the creature’s sightline, Yuuri’s energy fled him all at once. He collapsed against the shut castle door, hands splayed against the metal and icework. He tried to gather his breath, but his chest was wracked with a swarm of silent sobs. So Yuuri allowed himself to crumple there—his eyes sliding shut; his back sliding against the frigid door, easing his body down until he could sit and huddle on the floor.

Yuuri pulled his legs up to his chest. Held the dark cloak tight and close.

He was alive. Alive. Alive. 

Again, Yuuri had reclaimed his life. He had prolonged the inevitable.

The arctic sun beat against him, a mirror to his throbbing heartbeat—and Yuuri prayed that the light would soak into his skin, singing him down to his very bones.

{~}

When Yuuri reentered the castle—shedding his parka by the door; keeping the cloak wrapped comfortingly over his shoulders—he dragged his weary body towards the smell of rich food. He had seen things far more terrifying and heavy in the abyss of the ice fields than could be contained within the narrow, decadent walls of a single dining room; even the notion of the other brides gazing at him, their eyes harsh and knowing, no longer troubled Yuuri in the slightest.

He only remembered dread when he crossed the threshold, walking with heavy steps towards that long glass table—and caught sight of Sara’s dark, shining hair.

Yuuri entered the dining room, and all the quiet noises of dining and idle chatter seemed to die down. Sara sat among the other brides, wearing a plain but fine sarafan, its velvet wine-maroon and its embroidery silver-and-white; her striking violet eyes were downcast as she pushed the food around on her plate. Although neither seat at her side was vacant, when she saw Yuuri enter, she sent him a soft and familiar smile—and her gaze sharpened as she saw the cloak hanging from Yuuri’s shoulders.

Yuuri fell heavily into the nearest empty seat.

What foods made it to his plate did not matter. Yuuri ate steadily, unthinkingly; all the delicacies tasted like ice and charcoal on his tongue.

He had to tell Sara. He could not fathom a way to tell her gently, or to muster up the elegance and strength to do it properly. He could imagine himself breaking into sobs, unable to form the words; he could imagine himself delivering the truth of her brother’s fate blandly, without emotion, as though remarking on the weather outside or the juiciness of the roast on the table. 

Yuuri forced himself to swallow his mouthful. He wished, deeply and unspeakably, that he felt things a little less deeply. He wished that things could be simple and that spring would come.

A flash of fury sparked in his chest at that—that they all sat here, demure and murmuring, for the whims and delight of a single god. The lord of winter, for all the softness of his voice or the gentleness of his hands, kept them here without goal or remorse; he held them like a fortune in a vault, languishing in luxury as those bolder and stronger perished under the black-soled claws of a beast.

The winter king would not call upon him that night. Surely he wouldn’t. Yuuri could not deliver anything new or different from the dozens who had tried before him. He knew that nothing about him was more beautiful, alluring, or enchanting than the others. 

But—if he did.

If the winter king crept through his door, Yuuri needed his strength. 

Yuuri shoveled more food into his mouth, kept his eyes upon the table, and allowed his thoughts to whirl and build into flurries inside his skull.

{~}

Yuuri returned to his room. He stripped. He bathed. Oddly, the castle’s responsive silence and lack of questions had become his greatest trust and comfort here, in this lantern-lit place of mystery and cold.

The god would not come to him tonight. Yuuri felt sure of this, as sure as he was of his own lack of appeal. Yet he still eased the knots from his hair; he ran oils and a wet cloth over his skin, over and over, until he was soft and fragrant. The castle gave him an herbal tea, so he drank, breathing in the aromas of chamomile and lemon. 

Yuuri crawled into bed as though he would be able to sleep.

Without instructions, the lanterns remained lit, their steady golden glows like flickering constellations in the hush and shadows. Yuuri’s heartbeat was steady. His hands stroked the dark cloak draped atop his bedding like a throw.

Before long, Yuuri’s breaths became visible, plumes of vapor easing from his open mouth.

His heartbeat hastened as a chill crept along his skin. He did not look to the doorway; he did not study the yellow beam of light reaching beneath the metal door, or indulge in the folly of listening for footsteps. 

His door crackled under an icy touch.

Yuuri turned to look as a familiar figure appeared in his doorway—the god’s white hair shining gold in the lantern light.

“Yuuri,” said the winter king. He walked inside; his footsteps were silent. “You are awake.”

He said this as though he cared whether or not Yuuri slept. Yuuri’s throat clicked quietly on a swallow. He averted his gaze, looking into the shadows of the bedroom.

“I have much to think about,” Yuuri muttered. 

As the god came closer, a soft smile reached his pale face—teasing, and perhaps a hint timid. “You were not waiting for me?”

Yuuri supposed he should blush, protest, or whisper sweet admittances. That is what a good bride would do. But as he listened to the winter king’s words, he could not muster more than exhaustion and quiet surprise. He had not been waiting for him. He had been so certain that the god would not return.

Now, he was here, and he spoke so softly that Yuuri found himself at a loss.

The god stopped at Yuuri’s bed, then lowered onto his knees, on the floor. His icicle fingers traced along Yuuri’s brow, swiping black hair away from Yuuri’s eyes. “Yuuri. My lovely. Are you comfortable?”

Yuuri took a deep, fluttering breath. Nodded. “I am.”

“Good,” said the god, and carefully adjusted the bedding to tuck the cloak nearer to his chin. “I am glad to see you use this. I gave it to you for a reason, you know.”

After the winter king smoothed the cloak over his form, Yuuri returned to staring at him again—studying him with his dark eyes wide and his brow furrowed. “Did you?”

That frigid hand pushed his hair aside; cool lips pressed against Yuuri’s forehead. “Of course,” the god said, half-smiling as he leaned away. “I want you to keep warm.”

Yuuri kept staring. Studied him. The winter king’s horde was all things beautiful and cold; some of those things just happened to be alive, and Yuuri supposed he could be counted as one of them. Yet the god kept all his brides warm that night—the ones who slept, burrowed in soft and sprawling beds; the one at the god’s fingertips, swathed in his cloak. Perhaps, cold and distant as he was, their husband did not wish for them to suffer.

Without truly knowing why, Yuuri lifted one hand from the bedding to cradle the winter king’s face. His heart, beating warm and loud in his own ears, stuttered as the god smiled, leaning into the touch.

“What is your name?”

The god’s expression went slack—that soft smile floating away.

Yuuri frowned; his heart stuttered again, this time on nerves. “Should I not have asked? It’s only—I didn’t ask before because, well… I didn’t know gods had them.” Yuuri pulled back his hand, fingers curling in towards his chest. “I’m sorry.”

“No!” The god whispered, insistent, and reached to catch Yuuri’s hand. “Don’t apologize. I was just… surprised.”

He took Yuuri’s hand back, brought it to his face, and pressed a kiss onto each of his knuckles. His lips were warmer now; Yuuri wished he could touch his cheek again, to see if the skin there had claimed some of the heat from his fingertips. 

“Viktor,” said the winter king. He grinned. “That’s the name I like best.”

“Viktor,” Yuuri repeated. 

His grin broadened. Yuuri flushed, seeing the stately winter king smile at him with teeth—pale lips pulled taut; ghostly blue eyes illuminated gold in the lantern lights. He seemed… young, somehow. It grated and clanged against the image Yuuri had cultivated in his mind: of a cold, distant, greedy god.

The winter king—Viktor, his husband—leaned forward, kneeling on the floor at Yuuri’s bedside, to take Yuuri’s face gently in both hands. “Say it again.”

Yuuri’s brow crinkled in confusion. “Viktor…?”

When Viktor rushed forward to kiss him, his lips could almost be called warm.

The touch and proximity should have been welcome—Viktor was his husband; he had been gentle, as promised, and shown Yuuri great passion—yet Yuuri flinched all the same. He tried to cover it by weaving his fingers through the pale hair at the base of Viktor’s neck, and returning the kiss with a shy, watery sincerity.

Viktor pulled away. He watched Yuuri’s face. In that moment, Yuuri was afraid again—worried that this god who had, apparently, been roped or tricked into returning to Yuuri’s bedside would see right through him, spot Yuuri’s unease and unsuitability and hesitations like blood seeping in bathwater. 

But Viktor only smiled. It was even softer now, without the lustful heat Yuuri had anticipated. “You are red,” he said, skimming featherlight fingertips onto Yuuri’s cheeks, bridging the low bump of his nose. “It even feels hotter. Why?”

Yuuri frowned. “Do you mean… sunburn?”

“The sun did this?” Viktor huffed, as though amused and intrigued. “But I thought… you did not stay out so long. Ah, well. You are quite delicate, aren’t you?”

Yuuri squinted at him.

The god pressed a delicate kiss to his sun-flushed face. “And here I thought I could flatter myself.”

Happily, gently, Viktor pressed Yuuri back into the bed. He toed off his shoes and slid into the covers, humming in quiet delight at the warmth. Right away, his hands encircled Yuuri’s waist, sliding along his spine and cradling the curve of his waist. Although the touch was hungry, and a bit greedy, it was not hurried; Viktor was merely there to enjoy Yuuri, at whatever pace pleased him most.

“Wait, Viktor,” Yuuri said, breaking from another of Viktor’s kisses, “why do you say that I—” Yuuri leaned his head away from Viktor’s; his husband used the chance to kiss along Yuuri’s neck— “‘did not stay out so long’?”

“Because you did not,” Viktor replied plainly. He kissed Yuuri’s jaw, then his cheek, then his nose.

Yuuri’s chest thumped fast. Confusion and dread tickled the back of his throat; frustration followed soon after, since his days in this cold and golden-lit castle had already been dogged by enough fear to last a lifetime. “Do you—” he halted, seeking softer words; could find none— “Do you watch me? During the day?”

Viktor’s hands pushed under Yuuri’s light kaftan, skimming over Yuuri’s skin like a steel chain swiftly warming through contact. “Sometimes,” he said, humming. “Though I would not say it’s become a habit quite yet.”

_ Why? _ strummed through Yuuri’s exhausted, anxious mind. _ How? _ flitted through next, along with _ What do you mean, _ ** _yet_**_? _

But Yuuri could not voice it. He could not stop the god if he wished to follow Yuuri’s every breath and footstep, or note his every bite of food, or peer in on him bathing. He did not know where Viktor went in the day. Yuuri had—assumed, perhaps, that Viktor spent his days hard at work, destroying more fields and sowing more starvation; it must be busy, Yuuri thought, to enrobe an entire hemisphere in a stubborn and forbidding freeze. Who knew how many bodies, crumpled and ice-crusted, already lined the frozen earth; who knew how many more would be claimed, just like that boy in the armor outside in the snow, and all because Yuuri had not been clever, quick, or enchanting enough—

_ Spring. Spring. Remember spring. _

But as Viktor grasped him by the waist and thigh, pulling Yuuri until he rested atop his husband’s reclining body, it was difficult to focus on much at all.

“Yuuri,” Viktor whispered, lips grazing his ear, “_myshka_. I love the weight of you.”

_ No, myshka_, Yuuri recalled; the memory arrived unbidden and jarring, as even the coolness of Viktor’s breath harkened back to that strange forest. _ Not yet. _

Yuuri slid his knees onto either side of his husband’s hips, planting both palms against his chest. As he sat up, Viktor anticipated it, tugging the cloak higher so it remained perched along Yuuri’s shoulders.

“Viktor, wait.” Their eyes met in the low light; Yuuri paused to keep his breath, startled at the intent and focus in those ice-blue eyes. “I… I wanted to thank you.”

Viktor’s head tilted, hands roaming up and down Yuuri’s thighs. “What for?”

“For saving my life,” said Yuuri. He wanted to touch the side of Viktor’s neck, to discover for himself the temperature of that bare skin, and he saw no reason to stop himself. “You saw me at the doorway. You pulled me back. Thank you.”

A strange shadow fell over the god’s face.

Yuuri flinched.

His body stayed tense and unyielding as Viktor turned them, pushing Yuuri down into the bed with a firm, unrelenting pressure. “Don’t think of it,” he said—and though he may have tried to sound casual, his tone veered startlingly close to that of a command. “It was not your time. That’s all.”

_ How would you know that_, Yuuri wanted to ask.

But Viktor silenced him, capturing Yuuri’s lips in a hungry kiss.

Yuuri moaned high and short, deep in his throat, at Viktor’s sudden and alarming urgency. The gentleness had all but left him—hands squeezing, tugging, pushing Yuuri’s clothes away; lips sucking and nipping at Yuuri’s neck; full weight bearing Yuuri down into the bed. Their pace had quickened beyond Yuuri’s capacity to settle at the contact.

But he had to be strong. He had to gather himself, be the blushing bride that Viktor desired, and melt down steadily towards the truth of spring. That role had been natural, even enjoyable before, on the night their marriage was consummated; now, under an attention more greedy than doting, it felt as heavy as a manacle clasped tight around his neck.

“Yuuri,” said the god. Yuuri realized with a jolt that he had long gone motionless, locked under his husband’s touch. Viktor raised up, pausing to look down at him. “You’re trembling.”

In the dim golden light of the lanterns, under the weight and gaze of a blue-eyed god—and the uncertain survival of a starving world—Yuuri struggled to breathe.

“Y-You—” Yuuri broke off; his voice was too loud, too shaky. His mind tormented itself: what did he think, that he was still a virgin? That he still had the right to be afraid of his husband’s touch? That it was so terrifying to be wanted? “You said—you would be gentle.”

Viktor watched him. That shadow had not left his placid features. Yuuri prayed that he would not smile—knew, somehow, that it would be hollow. “You’re still frightened of me.”

Pushing his arms into the mattress, propping his head up, Yuuri’s face skewed into a frustrated frown. “Yes,” he whispered harshly. “Of—of course I am. We hardly know each other. And I have nothing to hold against you, except your cloak and your word.”

Viktor tilted his head. His calm expression, sliding into that pretty smile—_hollow_, so hollow, as though he would project sweetness even if rage battered at his skull and Yuuri were no longer fun to play with—hammered yet another nail into the coffin of Yuuri’s composure. “I see. And that troubles you?” 

Fat tears gathered at the corners of Yuuri’s eyes. 

He shoved Viktor away, then curled in on himself. He pulled the cloak so it wrapped tight around his shuddering shoulders; hoped the fur would eat him alive. He remembered a boy in armor torn apart in the light of the morning sun. He remembered a beast, black-eyed and black-soled, with claws and teeth like rows of daggers.

_ Yuuri, Yuuri, Yuuri, _ someone called to him; someone touched him, icy fingers prying at the cloak, trying to bring Yuuri’s crumpled face into the light. 

“No!” Yuuri snapped. He slapped at the frigid touch. “Don’t touch me!” 

Two firm hands held him by the shoulders; tried to lift Yuuri up, sit him upright. Yuuri lashed out—shoving the unwelcome touch away, tears and snot leaking from his reddened face. 

He returned to awareness with loose fists held aloft and Viktor thrown back on the bed. A fresh cut shone dull and blue on Viktor’s cheek—mortal damage dealt on an immortal, unbleeding form. Yuuri drew in labored breaths. He brought his hands back, clutching at the cloak shakily. “I can’t do this,” he whispered, voice an echoing ghost among the oppression of his gasps. “I can’t._ I can’t.” _

That hollow, distant gleam haunted Viktor’s eyes. “What do you mean.”

“I can’t,” Yuuri breathed—closing his eyes, gathering more breath and stability; then opening them again. “I can’t… touch you like this. Bed you again. Act as though… we’re just… newlyweds.”

Viktor sat back slowly. The gentleness had fled from him; what remained was the cold, distant, unfamiliar husband that matched the image Yuuri had long cemented in his mind.

“What do you want from me,” he asked, dully. 

As desires flooded Yuuri’s mouth, he shut his eyes again. Left them closed as he spoke. “I want the truth,” he said. “I want no lies or pretense between us. I am tired of that—that horrible _ look_, that hollow smile you give me. I’m not stupid; I know it’s a lie. I never want to see it again.” 

Still Viktor said nothing. Yuuri rubbed his eyelids, taking in as many shaky breaths as he could.

“I am…” _ Going mad here. An unsuitable bride. Tired of being afraid. _ “I cannot be anything more than what I am. In exchange, I ask you to be nothing other than what you are. Can you give that to me? Is that within your power?”

A moment of silence passed between them. Then: “Perhaps not.”

“Why?”

“Because you have already asked me for happiness,” said the winter king. “And my true self, I find, makes for unhappy marriages.”

Yuuri scoffed; rubbed a shaky hand over his damp brow. “Forget happiness. I will never ask that of you again. Can you give me honesty?”

Another beat of silence. “Yes.”

Yuuri sighed. His swelling eyes slid open to stare at the bedding, at the space engulfing the heaviness between them. “Then,” he said, tears clinging to his voice, “may I be selfish, and ask you for something more?”

Viktor kept silent. Yuuri looked up at him slowly, seeking rejection or malice in his features. He saw icy distance, patience, and an odd touch of melancholy—but at least none of it was hollow.

“Outside the castle,” Yuuri said, holding his husband’s eye, “there is a boy, mauled and frozen in the snow. Can you—will you cremate him?” Tears rolled down his face. “Will you give him a proper urn?”

True shock reverberated through Viktor’s pale features. He took a deep breath—strange, as he did not need to, and hardly seemed to take in air even to speak—then nodded.

Yuuri glanced down at the bedding again. “Thank you,” he whispered. “That boy is Sara’s brother. When you have—when it is done… I’m going to tell her. I will give her the urn.”

“No.”

Yuuri’s gaze flitted back up.

Viktor smiled—a bittersweet, delicate flutter of lips. “I will present it to her.”

“But—”

“I promised you honesty,” Viktor interrupted, and huffed a quiet laugh. “And we both know that this is something I must do. A task I am responsible for.”

Yuuri frowned. His jaw clenched; his teeth ground together.

“_Myshka_,” whispered the god. His fingers brushed Yuuri’s sleeve, and a delicate string of timid, fluttering affection wove through the word, a foreign nickname Yuuri did not understand. “When I have finished your task, I will return to you. And then you will be at peace in my arms.”

Yuuri turned his face away. He tried to open his heart, to allow a brittle affection of his own to unwind there. But he was too tired. 

“No.” His voice fell like a stone into the space between them. “I’m sorry. I don’t want to see you again.”

“But—” Viktor sounded confused and hurt; it rang strange from the throat of an ageless god— “I am your husband. And I want—”

“Not tonight,” Yuuri explained. “I don’t want to see you again tonight. I am… my mind is not coping well, in this place.” Yuuri chuckled darkly, and a tendril of bitterness curled around his heavy heart. “And besides. You have plenty of brides to choose from. I’m sure you can find a more beautiful and enthusiastic bed partner.”

“I don’t understand,” said Viktor. “You send me off to perform a funeral. And then you want me to… go to another’s bed?”

Yuuri leaned back onto the pillows. He curled in on himself; nuzzled into the cloak. “I guess so.”

“But.” The god raised a hand, reaching out; the movement aborted with a frown and a sharp grit of his jaw. “I came here because I wanted you. I don’t want another bed.”

Yuuri only looked at him with dark, vacant eyes. Said nothing.

Viktor took another deep breath, as though gathering air for an argument. But perhaps he saw the immovability in Yuuri’s eyes—a stubbornness and fatigued apathy that held no capacity for change. He stared for a long time at Yuuri’s dark gaze, his shuttered face, the cloak pulled around his body.

Then he stood. 

His black boots were soundless even as he stomped towards the door, wrenched it open with a freezing touch, and let it clang shut behind him.

Yuuri did not know how long he lay there, eyes open and unmoving in the darkness. His mind drifted in meaningless, empty spirals; his chest creaked to allow in each breath, then to gust out plumes of gray vapor into the chilly night. He waited for what he bitterly wished he would not hear.

But the answer, with Viktor’s new-promised honesty, arrived soon enough. 

A slow creak of the door across the hallway. A quiet murmuring in the night. 

A sudden, cracking, uneven shriek—the stricken sobs of a sister who had lost her other half.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> listen. listen. this is a dark beauty and the beast AU. this is about a human who charms a beast and teaches him how to be a person. it's self-indulgent and chock-full of all the dark tropes and macabre themes that I love.
> 
> that said, I am planning to give this fic a (mostly) happy ending based on a true and timeless love, so if you can dig it? stay tuned. 
> 
> thanks for reading.
> 
> p.s. I'm not sure when I'll next update my fics.... work has been horrid and I'm exhausted and discouraged pretty often these days. it sucks to have to pay rent :(


	3. From This Keep and Its Wild-Carved Walls

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> better late than never lmao
> 
> thank you Rae (ao3 @Zuzuhi) for the readthrough! and ofc many thanks to my wife and beta @ceesquatch for the encouragements, support, and reality checks ~
> 
> pls to enjoy

Yuuri sat down for breakfast.

Sara was not at the table. This did not surprise him. None of the other brides seemed even remotely interested in chatting with him, busying themselves over fruit and boiled eggs—which also did not surprise him. But their disregard seemed even icier than usual, with all eyes and bodies and chatter tilted well away from Yuuri’s general direction.

Yuuri did not let it concern him. He unfolded a linen napkin to place on his lap, draped it over his fine woolen pants, picked up a silver fork, and set to eating.

Before long, an elegant form dressed in opulent clothing dropped into the chair at Yuuri’s left hand: Chris, with his green eyes alert and his lips curled into a small, knowing smirk. 

Yuuri glanced up at him. Back down at his meal. Up at Chris again. His dark brow creased at the sly, unflappable expression on Chris’s face.

Yuuri quickly tired of the pretense. “Chris. Good morning.”

Chris, however, never seemed to tire of pretense. One brow lifted as he drawled: “Is it?”

Yuuri blinked. Quietly went back to his breakfast.

“And how was your night?” Chris asked. His elbow rested near Yuuri’s plate; his chin was perched on an elegantly draped hand. “Did you sleep well?”

“Yes. Thank you,” Yuuri lied. With a sigh, he gave Chris the cue he must’ve been digging for. “And you?”

“Oh, I slept very little.” Chris smirked and stretched, rolling a weary shoulder. “I did catch a few hours, in the beginning of the night. But I was woken unexpectedly, and then I had a mopey husband to entertain all the way ‘til dawn.”

Yuuri glared—then caught himself, features smoothing. He had no right to scorn him, even if Chris had only wandered over to boast. 

“I have entertained our husband for many nights,” Chris continued, “and I have seen many of his moods. But maybe you can tell me, Yuuri…” He leaned closer, voice hushing, “…Why the winter king stayed _ hours _ in my room—_my _ room, where I sleep in barely a stitch—and spent the entire time talking about _ you.” _

Yuuri’s eyes widened. He forgot to blink.

“Yuuri said this,” Chris mocked quietly, slowly. “Yuuri did that. Yuuri looked so upset. Why is he so unhappy? I’ve told him he can have whatever he wants. He seemed so enthusiastic on our first night together, when I pushed him down and—”

“_Shut up_,” Yuuri hissed, closing the last small distance between their faces. 

But Chris wasn’t finished. “I’ve done everything he’s asked,” he mock-whispered, right into Yuuri’s ear. “So why does Yuuri turn me away?”

Yuuri glared. “That’s not your concern.”

Chris grinned. “After all those hours? It is now, _ cheri_.”

“I just—” Yuuri glanced away, at the other brides; all eyes were trained away, a little too well. “Did not—want to.”

“Funny,” Chris remarked dryly. “Because I thought that was the only reason you’re here.”

“That’s _ not _ why.”

“Oh, but it is.” Chris’s whisper went sing-song: “Satisfy the winter king…”

Yuuri’s dark eyes, sharp, caught Chris in a sidelong glower. “I am not so delusional,” he breathed, “that I think I can fuck the spring out of him.”

“Ah. I see.” While Chris’s smirk subdued, his self-satisfaction never seemed to drain. “So you’re trying to torment it out of him. Smart.”

“I’m _ not—” _ Yuuri scoffed; sighed. “What do you want me to say? That I’ve failed yet again? I’m stupid? I’m a waste of time and space?”

“Slow down, friend,” Chris laughed. 

“I don’t know what I’m doing,” Yuuri admitted—voice barely audible. “I don’t know how to satisfy him. I don’t even know where to begin.”

For a few long moments, Chris stared, his striking face tilted up and green eyes searching. Then he laughed. “I think,” he said, huffing under his breath, “that in order to be satisfied, you need to _ want _ something. And finally, after a very long time… our husband wants.”

Again, Yuuri stared at him. Blinked. Breathed. _ Wants? _ He thought, staring still. _ What does he…? _

Chris lifted a single brow at him.

Yuuri gaped. “You—you don’t mean—”

Those green eyes rolled drastically. “Of course I do.”

“But…” Yuuri turned, jolting to look down at his abandoned breakfast. “I’m just…”

“Well, whatever you’re doing,” Chris drawled, leaning back in his chair, “I recommend you keep doing it. With one key difference, of course.”

Yuuri goggled up at him again. “What?”

Chris leaned in, green eyes honed to Yuuri’s blushing face. He grinned sharply. “Do not involve me in your little spats again. I very much value my beauty sleep.”

{~}

When Yuuri left the dining room, walked back into the castle, and headed down the hallway towards his bedroom, his feet were heavy. Each step resounded with grief, a pattern of lonely echoes in a beautiful cavern of cold.

Sara’s bedroom door was shut. Yuuri stopped to study it, to see how the filigree metalwork fit into the dark wood. But only for a moment. 

Once that moment passed, his knuckles fell against that dark wood in a firm rap-tap-tap. 

“Sara?” He called. “It’s Yuuri. I wanted to make sure you had eaten.”

The door swung open.

Yuuri peered inside. Sara’s bedroom was different than his: the furniture was darker, richer, with ornate carvings and swirled designs. Even her four-post bed was different, with bedclothes of deep hues and a quilt of brown-black mink. Yet the lady of the room was nowhere to be seen.

“Sara?” Yuuri walked inside and glanced about, seeking clues. “Where are you?”

The door clicked shut behind him. He did not jump at the sound; only kept looking.

Yuuri knocked on the bathroom’s doorway, then peeked inside when he received no answer. Meekly, he leaned down to look under the bed; he even rustled through the wardrobe, pushing aside sarafans and shifts of delicate white linen. But wherever Sara was, little trace of her remained here.

“Where did she go?” Yuuri wondered aloud.

Instantly, the door clicked open. As Yuuri turned to watch it creak away from the threshold—catching sight of the illuminated hallway beyond—he noticed a new presence on the bed, out of the corner of his eye.

Two parkas: one in his size, and one that would perfectly fit Sara.

Yuuri’s eyes widened. “No,” he breathed, terror dropping like molten lead into his stomach. “She left? And without—” He rushed to the bed, taking up the smaller parka; its fox-pelt lining was attached with a lovely filigree pattern, similar to the furniture that decorated her space. If Sara had ventured outside without a proper parka, she could be dead within the hour; she may even be dead already. 

_ That could have been her intention_, Yuuri thought—then quickly banished the idea as irrelevant. 

He put down the filigreed parka. Picked up the other, looping it over his head and smoothing it over his woolen kaftan.

As he turned back to the open doorway, Yuuri saw a new pair of fur-lined boots.

He exhaled a deep, bracing breath. “All right,” Yuuri said, nodding at the castle’s silence. “I will go.”

Once his boots were on, laced up and tight—and the other parka was in hand—Yuuri went into his own room, retrieving Viktor’s cloak and the mittens he had left inside. He dressed fully. There was no time for hesitation—no more tolerating his own doubts and weaknesses, not when Sara needed him, and not when he still had the ability and time left to save her.

When Yuuri stood at the castle door, he took one last, deep, bracing breath.

“Thank you,” he whispered—knowing the castle heard him.

Yuuri stepped into the breath-snatching cold.

He stood at the top of the staircase, peering through his glasses onto the ice fields below. It was so bright that he could not discern a single detail—flinching at the high sun and endless, glaring white; covering his eyes with his free hand. 

He had to look for her on foot.

Yuuri began the descent—one mittened hand clinging to the railing, the other raised to shield his eyes and keep the extra parka draped over his elbow. A chilling wind blew into his face, creeping into whatever crevice of his clothing it could find. Yuuri shivered. He listened well, seeking any hint of speech; in the back of his mind, he also sought the sound of heavy, crunching, black-soled footsteps—but it wouldn’t do to dwell too long on those thoughts.

The base of the high castle was a tangle of uneven ice, washed-up bergs, and the boulders shorn from the mountain by gust and glacier. High snowdrifts had built over time to pile against the rocks; while the wind blew some clearings clean, the snow’s depth was not always clear by sight, and some small paths remained from the well-worn travels of both humans and beast alike.

Yuuri sighed as he stepped down from the stairs. He could keep to the main path that lead straight from the staircase. It was his best chance of avoiding the beast, and that would be the road Sara took if she meant to flee back to society. But Yuuri did not think she had done that. Anyone who desired such a journey would have dressed properly; they would have packed for the trip, and left at dawn to narrow the chance of running into the winter beast.

But perhaps Sara had not been thinking clearly. Perhaps she had done as Yuuri had, scrambling into the blank unforgiving white at the very first sign of strife. 

Yuuri did not think she had done that. Sara, after all, was braver than he.

He walked the main path. He kept his eyes moving, scanning the peripheries. The first time he saw a new, smaller path—a fresh set of footprints, pristine crumples in the snow—he followed it.

Before long, the sound of voices rose in the bright, biting air.

“...don’t see your point,” a voice snapped—and Yuuri gasped to recognize it as Sara’s. “Night, or day. What does it matter?”

“Because, Sarinka,” a new voice said. There was patience and care in the tone, but also stubbornness, an unwillingness to indulge completely. “I know the stories back and forth. And I promise you, no weapon will affect the winter king.”

“Sara?” Yuuri called. He had no interest in eavesdropping, not when Sara could be freezing.

A pause hung heavy in the white-light. Then, tentatively: “...Yuuri?”

Yuuri smiled to himself, relieved. “Yes,” he replied, voice soft. They did not want to earn unwanted attention.

Mirroring the fresh footsteps in the snow, curling around the bend of an ice column jutting from the banks, Yuuri spotted Sara and another woman standing together in the white. The other woman was a stranger, but it was clear from her garb why she was there: chainmail jangled from within the cover of a fur-lined kaftan and plated armor; a helmet and long, brown-handled sword were tucked and tied at her sides. Her skin was the fair hue of a Northerner, with hair as deep and vivid as freshly spilled blood.

When she caught sight of Yuuri, her hand twitched towards the weapon at her hip. “Sarinka, who—”

“Another bride,” Sara explained. Her slim shoulders and too-light outfit were swaddled in a rough cloak of grayish, ruddy pelts; Yuuri guessed that it was wolf-furs. “What are you doing here?”

“I,” Yuuri muttered, nervous at the strange woman’s readied stance. “I brought you…” He held the extra parka aloft.

Sara stared at it for a few quiet moments. “How did you know?”

Yuuri shrugged. “The castle told me.”

Sara stepped forward. Took the parka from Yuuri’s hand. After she was properly dressed, she handed the wolf-cloak back to the warrior—who spun the fur onto her own armored shoulders, then pinned it closed with a brooch of sharpened bone.

“Thank you,” Sara mumbled. She avoided Yuuri’s gaze, averting her eyes from even his outline. In her arms she held an urn; Yuuri could tell it was beautifully crafted, carved of pale marble and painted with subdued, heart-wrenching colors.

“You’re welcome,” Yuuri said. “And… I’m sorry.”

“Why?”

Yuuri stared at the urn. Sara clutched it tighter to her chest.

“Why should you be sorry,” she whispered, tone heavy and harsh. “You did nothing.”

Her words hit Yuuri like a slap—he _ had _ done nothing, _ nothing, _ and certainly was of no use to anyone. Yet it was not the time to pity himself. “Still,” he responded, and swallowed down his hurt. “I am sorry.”

The silence rose suffocating and vivid between them. Sara’s head cocked to the side. “But you do wear his cloak,” she said, “so perhaps you did more than I give you credit for.”

Yuuri looked to the ground, opened his mouth—then kept silent. He had no words of comfort.

Through that silence, Sara kept studying him. She drew in a long, quiet breath. Her next whisper—hugging the urn; clutching it with her trembling, mittened hands—was laced with a gradually blossoming hatred. 

“Did you know?”

Yuuri’s face fluttered up, catching her eye in shock. He searched for words. “Sara, I—”

“No,” she hissed, stepping forward. The warrior followed behind, one hand raised, as though debating whether to halt her approach. “Just _ tell me, _ Yuuri. When did you find out? Don’t try to be kind. Tell me the truth.”

“I—” Yuuri forced himself to hold her gaze; he had no right to hide. “I was the one who… found him. In the daylight. I’m sorry, Sara; I just didn’t know how to—”

His words halted as Sara struck him, the force tilting Yuuri’s head towards the snow.

“You knew!”

“Sarinka,” the warrior woman said, gently, taking Sara’s arm in hand.

_ “You knew!” _ Sara repeated, and lifted a trembling fist into the air. Yet she did not strike him again; her strength was barely enough to remain standing and keep hold of the urn. “You should have told me!”

“I thought you would go to him,” Yuuri whispered. “Even in the dark. And it would have killed you.”

“Yes!” Sara yelled. Her voice rebounded against the ramparts of the castle. “Of course I would have gone to him! I would have died at his side! _ How dare you take that from me!” _

She tried to land another blow, but the warrior stilled her hand. Before long, the red-haired woman was keeping Sara aloft, ushering the sobbing woman into her arms and against her shoulder. As Sara babbled, the warrior shushed her carefully, lovingly, stroking Sara’s hair and smoothing her back.

“That’s his cloak,” Sara mumbled wetly, voice subdued against the warrior’s shoulder. “You lied to me—and you come here in _ his _ cloak.”

As she sobbed and grieved, Yuuri only stood, motionless, and did not breathe.

“You’re cruel, Yuuri.” Sara sniffed against the warrior’s shoulder; sent him a broken glare. “I never thought you would be so cruel.”

Feet lashed to the ground, heart still in his chest, Yuuri could barely think. 

_ What have I done? What have I done? _

The warrior sent him a withering glance. “Leave,” she ordered. “It’s enough.”

Before he could gather himself, Yuuri heard the telltale sound of heavy, crunching footsteps.

His head turned with a jolt towards the sound. It followed his path. It must. The wind blew at Yuuri’s chest, dragging his scent back; Yuuri had grown careless, laid bare by grief and sunlight.

“It’s coming,” Yuuri whispered. 

The warrior’s eyes widened. “Sarinka,” she whispered, pushing Sara back. “Get behind me.”

The blood left Yuuri’s face as he turned to the women—realizing something that he, and only he, might be able to do. “Go,” he whispered. “I’ll distract it. You can get away.”

The warrior scoffed. “Not a chance,” she said, and drew the sword from her hip.

“A sword will do nothing,” Yuuri snapped. The footsteps were loud now; the creature was almost upon them.

“This is not just _ a sword,” _ the woman replied. Her weapon swung smooth and practiced from an elegantly looping wrist. “I took this blade from Yakov the Deathless. It can kill the unkillable.”

The winter beast rounded along the path—its dull black eyes immediately landing upon Yuuri.

He wanted to run. He did not.

As the creature slowed, then stopped, its attention was held by Yuuri’s unmoving form. Its weight leaned onto its back legs, front paws free; Yuuri thought it might reach for him—but the warrior rushed forward and threw him aside. 

“_Move_,” she snarled, sword held high and tight in a readied grip. 

Yuuri rolled to the ground with a muffled gasp—a high-pitched and pathetic sound. He was unhurt; it was more of the shock than anything else that had made him whimper.

Regardless, Yuuri shuddered as he heard a thunderous, furious snarl erupt from the creature’s chest.

The warrior barely had the agility to brace herself as the winter beast charged. As its head collided into her, its feet pounded into the ground, crushing shards of ice beneath black-soled, monstrous paws; its mouth snarled agape, wet teeth flashing in the merciless noonday sun. The warrior must have been well-trained, because even as she was driven into an icy corner, she managed to lift her sword before the beast could snap its jaws. The blade, sideways, acted as a meager shield to halt the beast’s gnawing teeth. 

And perhaps, Yuuri thought, she had told the truth—maybe the sword was a killer of the unkillable, because though it did not pierce deep or with purpose, the blade drew gushing runnels of crimson from the creature’s mouth.

Yuuri ran to them, arms enclosing around the beast’s neck. “No!” He yelled, uselessly, commanding a creature that must not know speech. “Stop! _ Please!” _

From the corner of his eye, Yuuri saw the warrior’s arms trembling. She could not have much strength left to continue holding the creature at bay. Distantly, Yuuri heard the animal’s furious grunts and snarls; further away, he heard Sara screaming the warrior’s name, a litany of _ Mila! Mila! _ in the noonday light. Streams of red trickled onto the warrior’s face and chest, then flowed to the ground. The sword tugged between them—in the mouth of a demigod monster; in the arms and against the chest of a mortal woman. 

Yuuri did not think. He moved.

“It’s all right,” he said, shoving his body against the warrior’s side. One hand clasped around her wrist; the other landed upon the beast’s crinkled snout. “Stop this.”

“Go!” The warrior gritted out, and kicked Yuuri away. Her arms flinched as the beast pushed forward again, shoving her against an outcrop of ice. Even if she managed to hold off the beast’s jaws, it would soon crush her. 

_ “Stop this,” _ Yuuri said, stronger. He tried again to slide his body between them, pushing at the beast’s snout and brow all the while. “Let go.”

“Never,” the warrior wheezed out.

Yuuri laid his body over the creature’s head. “Let go.”

The creature gritted its jaw. Instead of obeying, it seized the blade in a vice-bite, untroubled by the deep gashes gouging into its mouth. Its weight shifted back, onto its hindlegs. Slowly, slowly, it rose up, giving Yuuri time to step back and pull at the warrior’s weakened form.

“Let go!” Yuuri ordered. She cast him another quick, dark, withering glance.

The winter beast stood. 

The warrior, refusing to surrender her weapon, hung in the air by the hilt.

Like swinging a pendulum, the beast twisted its head, then turned it back, slamming the warrior’s body into a tall, smooth boulder. All the breath burst from her chest—the sickening crunch of ribs against stone.

“Mila!” Sara cried, running to the warrior crumpled on the ground. She cradled the red-haired woman in her lap, careful not to jostle her. 

The beast, panting, spit the sword onto the ground. The blade was warped and filthy with steaming blood. The creature’s white pelt, once clean and white as snow, was ruby-stained with the proof of its wounds. 

As those dull black eyes turned to fall on the women, crouching together next to the boulder, Yuuri hurried to slide both hands under the creature’s ears. “Shh,” he gentled, holding that large, panting head in a firm grasp. “Shh. It’s all right. Look here.”

The beast snuffled, nose gusting and sniffing against Yuuri’s chest over and over again. Although its eyes were dull, and its mouth leaked blood and spittle, the creature soon began to calm, nose butting against Yuuri’s shoulder, sternum, and armpit.

Yuuri shushed. He petted. He kept his hands moving, his eyes low, his voice calm.

“Can you walk?” He asked, loud enough to be heard over his shoulder.

The warrior gasped and coughed softly. Her chest did not sound too labored. “Yes.”

Yuuri turned to look at them. When the creature grumbled, he stroked one of its small, soft, perked ears between the velvet-leather of his sealskin mittens. “Will you leave together?”

The women shared a long look. After many moments, Sara nodded to the warrior—Mila; that was her name—then returned Yuuri’s dark-eyed stare. “I want to see the spring,” she said. A single tear escaped, falling onto her filigreed parka. “But I also… can’t remain here any longer.”

Yuuri nodded. He saw that Mila’s wolfskin cloak, closed and pinned over her chest, had been soaked and now frozen with the beast’s blood. Without a word, he unclasped and unwrapped the dark cloak from his own shoulders. “Take this,” he said, and tossed the cloak onto Mila’s legs.

Sara glowered at the cloak—then at Yuuri, and the beast.

“It’s _ his,” _she hissed.

Yuuri nodded. “And it will keep her alive.”

A moment of silence. Then Mila drew the cloak closer, pulling it to her chest. “Thank you.”

Again, Yuuri nodded. The beast grumbled, needy; its stained snout poked harshly against Yuuri’s chest. He turned away from the women to give it more attention.

Their footfalls and muttered words and rustling clothes went mostly unheeded in his periphery. All Yuuri saw, was permitted to see, was the winter beast: a rumbling, demanding creature, its dull black eyes held firm on Yuuri’s form, its blood staining his parka. He was afraid of it, yet he also knew it would not harm him or turn away. It seemed, somehow, just a lonely thing, seeking murmured words and affectionate hands. 

While the creature nuzzled and stared at him, chest purring loudly, the women stood to leave. Not another word was spoken—nor any glances spared for Yuuri, who held a monster captive in gentle, stroking hands.

{~}

Yuuri returned to the castle with his parka smeared scarlet.

Sighs shuddering from his chilled chest, he stripped to nearly nothing in the castle’s first inner threshold. He wobbled and caught himself on the nearest wall, head hanging loose against his chest. 

He was so tired. He had to sleep.

For all he recalled, the castle itself drew his feet towards his bedroom door; its floors and rugs and the grooves of its laid bricks traced his route, tugged him by the ankles until he could fall through that familiar metalwork door. Unthinking, he trudged to the bathroom, where a hot and floral-scented bath was already drawn. A cup of herbal tea was even waiting for him on the marble lip.

Yuuri laughed at the sight of it.

“I did as you asked,” he whispered, nearly toppling into the bath, his voice a breath as he sunk into the water. “She’s alive. She may starve, in this endless winter… but for now, she lives.”

He washed. He drank the tea. He counted his breaths, sensing the slow and gradual enrichment of air into his blood. And, in the quiet of the washroom, he laughed. 

_ Imagine that, _ he thought. _ Me, Katsuki Yuuri. A tamer of beasts. _

By the time Yuuri’s damp hair fell onto the pillows, he was already asleep.

{~}

_ The head of a beast rested in his hands. _

_ Yuuri stood perfectly still as a pair of dull, dark, animalistic eyes stared up at him. Empty as they were, there was a softness there: an element of adoration; a sweet infatuation tinged with the sharpened edge of brutal loyalty. Yuuri lifted that head higher, straining the beast’s neck with the gentlest of pulls. It did not resist. _

_ The head of the winter king rested in his hands. _

_ Viktor gazed up at him in silence, head heavy and relaxed atop Yuuri’s bare palms. His blue eyes were full, shining; his stare was languid and contented. The skin beneath Yuuri’s fingers was as cool and seamless as a cricket-spring night. _

_ Adoring and peaceful, kneeling at Yuuri’s feet, the winter king had never been quite so beautiful. _

_ Neither of them spoke. No words could penetrate the clotted weight of the air between them. The god smiled as Yuuri stroked his cheek. Everywhere Yuuri touched, Viktor’s skin warmed on contact—a trail of heat following the path of his palms and the swipes of his thumbs. _

_ When Yuuri pushed at the seam of Viktor’s lips, his mouth easily fell open. _

_ Viktor let Yuuri hook a thumb onto the interior of his cheek, onto the blunt surface of his molars. He allowed Yuuri to rub the ribbed roof of his mouth and pin down his tongue. Around the intrusion of Yuuri’s thumb, a quiet, restless, eager moan slipped from Viktor’s throat; his body tensed and shifted _ , _ fingers curling and legs sliding in a subtle writhe. _

_ Still, Yuuri was silent. His stare grew darker. Hungrier. _

_ He waited until Viktor had settled, again becoming pliant in his hands. Then Yuuri slipped more fingers through the warm gap of his lips. He slid two fingers along the surface of that tongue _ — _ to make Viktor taste him; to feel the soft, dripping velvet of Viktor’s insides _ — _ and Viktor moaned urgently, desperately, squirming under Yuuri’s touch but never resisting… _

Yuuri awoke slowly, as though floating to the surface of liquid fire. 

His entire back, brow, and upper lip were slick with sweat. No windows or timekeepers indicated the time, but the silence surrounding him had the levity of an hour entirely deprived of sun; heavy quiet enclosed him, pulsating and echoing through the castle’s endless, cavernous innards. 

Beneath the covers, Yuuri ran heavy hands over his bare body. His gut gurgled and churned. He may not be able to tell the time, but his stomach was certainly insistent that he had missed dinner.

Not that it was enough to make him leave bed just yet.

Drowsy, comfortable, and safe, Yuuri’s mind was still soft at the edges, blurring into heat and dark and desire. He writhed in the bed slowly, repetitively, indulging in how the soft fabric slid hot and smooth across his skin. It was quiet; it was hot; and as Yuuri basked in it, sticky-sweet sleep-memories sauntered to the forefront of his mind.

Warm. Warm. Viktor’s mouth had felt warm, in his dream.

Yuuri slid his hand to his front, low, and grasped his cock.

Behind his eyes, he saw pale skin. Broad hands. Pink lips, white-blond hair, and eyes the color of a wintry floe. He heard a voice, soft, replaying as a whisper in his ears.

_ Looser, _ myshka_. Relax. _

As his right hand stroked, Yuuri’s other hand drifted over his chest, up his collarbones, and dragged gentle over his neck. His fingers were hot to the touch_ — _though now, for this, he wished they were not.

_ That’s it. Good. _

Yuuri bit his lip. Quickened his hand.

_ My beautiful bride. _

Even as his chest and groin burned at the memory—when Viktor had forged a place for himself in Yuuri’s body; when he had pried Yuuri apart, careful and doting_ — _ a soft huff escaped Yuuri’s mouth. _ Beautiful_. Ridiculous. He did not care to be beautiful; he never had. And around a being like Viktor, who was exquisite and terrifying beyond human capacity, beauty was the least of Yuuri’s concerns.

Instead, Yuuri’s mind dwelled on the desire he had seen in Viktor’s eyes. He remembered the greediness of Viktor’s hands; he ground his teeth to the echo of Viktor’s cock driving inside him, hungry and adamant and tireless.

_ You take me so well. _

Yuuri had. He _ would_. His legs were spread now as they had been then, wide beneath the sheets, heels digging into the mattress. His hips swiveled slowly, harshly, in a mimic of their night together; his roaming hand grasped a thigh, fingernails pricking skin, drawing his legs further apart. 

Grip tightening, eyes and mouth gliding open, the sensations melded together in Yuuri’s mind: the true memory of his body yanked apart; the warmth, pressure, and welcome violence of his fingers in Viktor’s mouth; and a new vision, one of Viktor with tears streaming down his face, choking out his pleadings and adorations as he bounced in Yuuri’s lap—

As Yuuri came, a shadow broke the beam of light under the door.

Cold drenched Yuuri as he saw it—eyes wide with horror and brow damp with sweat. 

“Lock it,” he choked out, heart pattering a panicked staccato.

The castle responded with its usual silence.

In the aftermath of climax—wrenched back to the shadowed, whistling halls of reality—Yuuri’s veins roared and pulsed. He waited with dread for the doorknob to be seized by a cold touch; for the metal of the knob to cloud over with cold. But perhaps the door would not open. Perhaps the castle was a beast in itself, a creature with no master, and it would obey even the words of one foolhardy, light-voiced mortal—and if so, Yuuri waited for the inevitable vitriol: the indignant, dark rage of an immortal denied the tribute it was once freely offered.

None of that came. 

After a few moments of silence, there was a gentle knock on the door.

“Yuuri?” The winter king called out. 

Then—nothing, except a thundering heartbeat and the blue quiet.

“Yuuri?” Again, softly, with a timid mark of restraint in the tone. “Are you awake?”

Yuuri stepped from the bed, legs shaky, with his own come smeared and cooling on his stomach. He dragged the rabbit-skin blanket from atop the covers with a nearly soundless hiss. Wrapped it around his shoulders as he approached the door on bare, silent feet. 

When he was a mere breath’s-span from the door, he lifted one hand and rested it upon the metalwork. 

It was not as cold as he had anticipated.

A soft sigh, blown against the door. “Won’t you let me in?”

That voice was soft, unsure. Yuuri wondered what his face looked like—if those icy blue eyes were downcast and glassy, staring at the chilled metal door with the richness of undisguised longing and hurt. Where they rested against the door, Yuuri’s fingers burned, singed to the bone at mere imaginings.

“Why do you shut me away?” Viktor asked. When still he received no answer, the god’s voice rushed out: “You’re afraid of me. I know it. You have every reason to be. But I swear to you, Yuuri—_ myshka_, my lovely. My beauty. I will never hurt you.”

Yuuri shut his eyes. Leaned his forehead against the door. He tried to ignore the lump in his throat and the deep, inexplicable, bewildering throb in his chest. 

“Yuuri…”

A long, slow, quiet noise in Yuuri’s ears—like the hushed scrape of claws; like the drag of fingernails down a plane of metal.

“...What can I do? To prove myself?”

Warmth emanated from the metal of the door. Yuuri did not know if it was from Viktor’s touch, or the heat of his own skin.

“A gift,” Viktor mumbled. He sipped an excited breath. “I can—what would you like? Anything; I’ll give you—would you like silks? Jewels? Or, perhaps—” Viktor chuckled shortly, as though giddy— “Of course. A cloak. You will need another, now. What would you prefer? Fox? Ermine?”

Yuuri’s gaze, before curious and dazing, hardened in an instant. 

“Wealth or rarity is no object,” Viktor continued. From his voice, Yuuri could tell he smiled. “Please, Yuuri. Tell me what would make you happy.”

Yuuri swallowed. Gritted his jaw.

“Yuuri?” The winter king called out again. The name fell from those lips as a plaintive, as swift and piercing as the gusts that tumbled gracefully over the fields of white outside. “Are you listenin—?”

“Why.”

A sharp gasp—surprise, or even delight. 

Viktor breathed: “Yuuri…”

“Why are you here?” Yuuri forced out. His fingers curled against the door.

“I want to see you,” Viktor said—as though such a thing were natural, simple, easy. 

“Why?” The word was a shaky bite.

Quiet hesitation, as though Viktor was gathering words. “...Must there be a ‘why’?”

“Yes,” Yuuri said. “There must. Because I don’t understand.”

“What is there to understand?” Viktor laughed thinly, caught off-foot. “I want to see you. No one else. Just you.”

“But,” Yuuri mumbled. His eyes fluttered shut, shutting away the uncertainty and curiosity and desire he cast endlessly into the dark. “I don’t think… I can satisfy you.”

A long stretch of silence seeped through the door.

Then, quietly: “You’re wrong.”

“I am afraid,” Yuuri admitted. “And I’m not—Viktor, try to understand. I’m not the kind of man who gives affection easily. I did my best before; I tried to be good to you. But I couldn’t make it last. This—what we have, what we’ve done, it _ does _ frighten me, but not in the way you think, and—”

“Yuuri.”

“And there are others,” Yuuri said in a rush, unable to halt his mouth, the roil of his thoughts, or the patter of his heart. “Other brides who can make you happy. Please you better, I think, than I ever could.”

“Yuuri.” Viktor laughed; it was brittle, harsh, but it was not hollow. “You’re not listening. You are wrong.”

Yuuri bit his lip. “But—”

“If it pleased you,” Viktor interrupted, strained, “I would dismiss all the others. Right now. All you have to do is say the word, and I will do it.”

Yuuri leaned away from the door, mouth agape. 

“Is that what you want?” Viktor whispered. A nearly inaudible scratch drifted into Yuuri’s ear—Viktor’s nails, dragging along the door. “Would that… would you open to me? Would you look at me again?”

“_No_,” Yuuri ground out, eyes wide with horror. “Are you—no! Of course not! The others—they would be _ homeless_, Viktor; please don’t joke—”

“I’m not joking,” Viktor said. The words were almost garbled; his face must be pressed to the door, lips grazing along the metalwork. “I promised you honesty. I intend to give it to you.”

“You’re not thinking clearly,” Yuuri muttered, mostly to himself. “You… you’re a god. You’re not used to closed doors.”

“Yuuri—”

“Leave here,” Yuuri said. His hand curled into a fist at his side; his dried come was biting on his belly, tacky and vile. If Viktor saw him now, Yuuri would surely choke on the shame, black-scaled and coiled in his chest like a striking asp. “I won’t open the door.” 

There was a strange, muffled sound on the other side of the door, strangled and high; before Yuuri could think on it, Viktor asked: “When will I see you again?”

“When I wish to see you,” Yuuri replied, face burning as that throb continued in his chest.

“Tomorrow?”

Yuuri curled forward. The door was hot under his palm; it almost hurt to touch. With his ear almost pressed to the metal, he thought he could hear Viktor’s throat click on a swallow.

“Will you wish to see me tomorrow night?”

That uneven tone, the bald longing—it sent a warmth low into Yuuri’s gut; it had his toes curling against the floor. “Maybe,” slid from his mouth unbidden. The syllables were cruel and slippery on his treacherous tongue. “Now go away. Find someone else to play with.”

Once more, Yuuri waited for the fury. The bang of a fist against metal. The biting ice of vicious words.

Yet though Viktor’s next words were bitter, they were not vicious. 

“I will do whatever you ask of me,” he said, slowly, “with few exceptions. _ That _ is one of them.”

Yuuri’s heart seized. Would he not leave…? 

But no: _ Find someone else. _

“I hope my future attentions do not disgust you,” Viktor said. 

Yuuri gasped to hear a footstep. Then another.

“Good night, Yuuri.”

The sound of those boots floated down the hallway, faded, and were no more.

Head pressed to the door, mind boiling and racing, Yuuri listened for any sound. There was nothing. Viktor was gone. _ Gone_. A god, a timeless being capable of feats Yuuri could not comprehend, and he had left at Yuuri’s insistence, easy as that.

Though Yuuri supposed he should not be surprised. It wasn’t the first time.

Still, Yuuri had a hard time believing it—so much so that he turned the knob under his hand, creaked the door open, and peered out into the hallway. He looked left, then right, then left again. Sputtering lamplights cast shadows from their sconces; a soft, brisk breeze caressed past Yuuri’s face, crawling out from the innermost reaches of the castle like drafts through a mine.

But there was no one.

Yuuri leaned back inside, shut the door, and exhaled deeply. He turned away from the door.

On his bed, heaped high enough to look like a calico monster, was a rich pile of furs.

{~}

Yuuri sat in his usual place at the dining room table.

A silver platter with a lid was placed at his setting. Dark, fragrant coffee was already steaming from a delicate porcelain cup. A cinnamon cookie was perched on his saucer. Around him, plump grapefruits, hearty breads, and fat sausages overflowed from trays of colorful china.

And there was a silver platter with a lid. One Yuuri had not seen before, nor placed there himself.

Yuuri’s hand curled onto the lid’s handle. His face tightened into a suspicious moue.

Across the table, Chris drank fragrant tea from a porcelain cup. He watched the tablecloth in perfect silence.

“Good morning, Chris,” Yuuri said distractedly, staring at the covered platter. “How did you sleep?”

Silence.

Yuuri’s gaze flicked up to study the bride across the table. A glazed, lax expression lagged on Chris’s handsome features; his plush lips hovered unmoving over his cup of tea.

“Chris?”

The man did not respond, seemingly lost in deep distraction.

“Chris?” Yuuri leaned forward, peering at Chris’s shuttered face. “Are you all right?” 

In leaning forward, Yuuri’s grip on the lid pulled up—and a high pile of loose gems scattered all over the table, into Yuuri’s lap, and down to the floor in a glimmering cascade. 

The clattering—along with the sudden silence of the other brides—seemed enough to snap Chris from his daze. “Oh, my,” he said, chuckling thinly over his cooling tea. “That’s quite the decadent breakfast, even for my tastes.”

Yuuri shoved the platter away sharply, rippling the tablecloth beneath. He brushed gems from his lap with brisk swipes. Avoiding so much as glance at a single stone, Yuuri grabbed the nearest empty plate, took up a fork, and began gathering buttered toast, sausages, and fruit. 

“How did you sleep?” He asked again, palms sweating and fingers trembling around glinting utensils.

Chris lifted one eyebrow—plainly staring at the platter, the escaped gems, and Yuuri’s insistently cool expression—and laughed under his breath. “Fine, I suppose.” He plucked a blue jewel from the tablecloth. “Hmm. On second thought…” 

He tucked the gem into a pocket. 

That strange, malicious lump returned to Yuuri’s throat; he banished it with a mouthful of toast. 

“I assume your night was eventful,” Chris said, grinning slyly, and rotated an emerald the size of a sparrow’s egg so it caught the light just-so.

“Not at all,” Yuuri mumbled, mouth half-full. “I spent most of it dozing or reading.”

“I see.” Chris chuckled again, the jewel rolling from his fingers and toppling to the table with a _ clunk_. “I suppose that explains it.”

Yuuri refused to ask what _ it _ meant. He already knew. “What will you do today?”

“Do you actually care?”

With a beat of surprise, Yuuri caught Chris’s eye. “Yes,” he replied. “Of course. That’s why I asked.”

Chris hummed and sipped his tea. His gaze slid away gradually, as though reluctant—or perhaps unsure. “Well,” he said, drawing out the syllable, “I thought to play piano until it no longer interested me. Then I would… read, I suppose.”

“Piano?” Yuuri prompted, smiling. He cut a sausage into small bits, then placed another on his plate to do the same. “You play?”

“No,” Chris drawled. “I just slam the keys at random.”

Yuuri sighed. “Chris, please. It’s too early for this.”

Another moment of quiet passed between them. The table bustled, though muted, as other brides continued eating and murmuring amongst each other; none showed overt interest in Yuuri or his conversation, as he’d grown well accustomed to. 

“Yes,” Chris said. “I play.”

The smile returned to Yuuri’s face. He kept cutting more sausages. “How long have you been playing?” 

“Oh, a long time,” Chris replied, waving a casual hand. “It’s muscle memory, at this point.”

“That’s amazing.” Yuuri thought for a moment, then asked: “Before you came here, were you a musician?”

Chris’s face tightened. “So many questions today.”

Yuuri shrugged. “Maybe I’m trying to know you better.”

“What a terrifying concept,” Chris said dryly, but he was smiling too.

“I’d like to hear it, sometime,” Yuuri said shyly. “If you wouldn’t mind. I’m sure you’re a beautiful player.”

“Not today?” Chris prodded—voice teasing, as usual, but Yuuri thought he caught a defensiveness within. 

“Maybe not today,” Yuuri said. “I want to go outside again. The sun shines so briefly these days.”

Another wave of a hand; another sip of tea. Chris looked away, and—considering the dull gleam of his eyes; the stare that clasped onto the gleam of a sapphire and never quite left—seemed ready to reenter his eerie daze.

Yuuri bit his lip. “Would you like to come?”

Chris’s gaze ripped from the stone. “What?”

“Outside,” Yuuri clarified. “Would you like to come with me?”

Chris scoffed. “No.”

“Why not?” Yuuri took a bite of his toast. By then, he’d amassed a small pile of cut-up sausage; he hoped it would be enough. “It’s safe on the stairs. And the air is fresh.”

“Freezing cold, and a stinking monster on the loose,” Chris corrected, dread and disgust weighing his demeanor. “No, thank you. I’m well content where I am.”

Yuuri frowned. “We’re not meant to be cooped up,” he said, insistent. “Just a short walk—”

“_N__o!”_ Chris snapped—louder and faster than Yuuri had ever heard him speak. “I will _not_ _leave.”_

Yuuri sat in silence, taken aback.

Chris jolted to a stand. “Never ask me that again.”

Despite his shock, Yuuri couldn’t resist blurting: “But why not—”

Chris turned from the table and rushed away, pale napkin tumbling from his lap like a dead dove. 

After Chris vanished into the halls of the castle, Yuuri stared at the empty doorway. His thoughts blared into nonsense, turning on strange corners and racing along blind paths.

Yuuri took a deep breath. Let it gust free.

He would go out alone. He would see the daylight again. Of those he’d met in this dark and icy place, so rarely had he seen them in sunlight: Sara, her brother, and the warrior Mila; the beast, the ice, and twilight, who took the name and face of a child called Yuri. The sun told Yuuri he was real; the sun told him what existed in truth, away from this keep and its wild-carved walls. 

Yuuri had amassed a small heap of sausages on his plate. He took a few unused napkins from the table, placed them in a neat pile, and transferred the sausages there, wrapping them all up tightly before tying off the top. 

He would see the daylight again. He was not afraid to go alone.

Surely, he would not be alone for long. 

{~}

Overcast skies cast the northern world in a white-gray cloak, thick tufts of cotton hovering over a stoat’s silken back. Ice like pearly boulders jutted towards the heavens; true boulders of granite held fresh and fluffy drifts in their yellowy crags, mingling within and below the glacier as pebbles in a pond. The cloud cover was thick enough to hide the sun’s face entirely, but not its radiance, forcing Yuuri to shield his eyes as he made his way down the slick staircase. The snow was fresh and mostly undisturbed; a new layer must have fallen in the night. 

The truth of this became apparent when Yuuri reached the base of the stairs—for a pair of broad, beautiful wooden snowshoes rested on the end of the bannister. Their webbing was even and taut, their ends were tied together with a thick ribbon of blue satin, and their cradles were the exact size of Yuuri’s boots.

Yuuri stared at the snowshoes for so long that the sausages went cold. After too much time wasted, he resolved to ignore them. 

His first step off the staircase sunk into waist-deep snow.

“Ah,” Yuuri bemoaned, yanking his now-damp leg out of white powder. His clothing may be thick enough to keep most of the wet out, but that didn’t mean it was pleasant, nor that enough saturation wouldn’t quickly turn treacherous.

Yuuri frowned deeply. Ground his teeth.

He put the snowshoes on.

As he waddled into the white, Yuuri still sunk, this time only shin-deep. The compaction of snow under his steps became rhythmic, a soft beat of crunch and squeaks; as he marched with purpose, Yuuri’s mind quieted, soothed by sunlight and the delightful lack of walls.

He stopped at the nearest edge of the sea ice, where the bergs bobbed, groaned, and clacked together. Beneath the frozen creaks, Yuuri could hear the lapping of water; he could smell the sharp tang of salt, and the familiar crispness of the sea. The scene only needed the calls of seabirds to offer the barest reminder of Hasetsu—that warm, familiar home he’d forsaken not so long ago.

There was a small crack of clear water in the ice sheets, like a black ribbon laid atop cream. Yuuri noticed a sliver of ice moving within it, approaching him with alarming speed.

Yuuri nearly strangled on his own breath when he realized: it was the beast, swimming.

“Oh, no,” Yuuri mumbled, backing up clumsily on his snowshoes. “Oh, no, no, no—”

Yet the beast kept coming closer, paddling like a dog. Yuuri turned to hobble away as fast he could, head turning frantically, seeking somewhere to hide. He had no fear for the creature’s teeth or claws; what he feared was what the beast took with it—something that could kill Yuuri in swift order, even with his sturdy clothes and the sun’s meager strength. 

Far behind him, Yuuri heard it: the beast emerging, soaked as a sponge with frigid seawater.

“Don’t get me wet!” Yuuri yelled over his shoulder. 

Swift, loping paws crunched the snow in Yuuri’s wake—rushing to catch him as though it were a game.

“No!” Yuuri snapped, and threw a clump of ice over his shoulder. He considered tossing the sausages in a random direction, but with his luck, Yuuri thought the creature would probably find him more interesting. “Leave me—alone—!”

Yuuri scrambled onto the base of the staircase, slamming his knees on a buried step before he could crawl further up. Behind him, he heard the crunch of ice, dripping water, and panting gusts; yet the beast came no closer. Yuuri’s heart throbbed in his chest, so he pressed a hand over it, willing it to slow. 

He cast an annoyed scowl at the beast. Began side-stepping awkwardly up the stairs. 

The creature seemed perfectly content, sitting on its bottom as deadly-cold seawater sluiced from its pelt.

“I’m not…” Yuuri panted, frowning, “...waterproof, you know.”

The beast snorted; stood to shake water off in a frigid spray.

“What were you swimming for?” Yuuri wondered, climbing further up. “Do you have places to be?”

The beast lifted its head, sniffing a lazy breeze.

Yuuri reached a wide bannister at the staircase’s first landing and cleared it of snow, swipes of his mittens scraping against ice and stone. Once the bannister was clear, he perched onto it, settling into a half-comfortable seat. The knapsack he placed in his lap. Recognizing that it could be closer if it went below the railing, the creature walked to Yuuri’s side of the staircase, footsteps crunching into powder at a slow lope.

“Were you hunting?” Yuuri asked idly. His snowshoes clanked atop the bannister as he settled in. “The others like you, the smaller ones. I hear they hunt seals.”

In the snow below him, the beast rose to a slow stand. Yuuri could probably touch the top of its outstretched nose if he reached and dared. But Yuuri would not, and did not.

“They say you shouldn’t feed wild animals,” Yuuri said—partly to himself, partly to the creature. He untied the knapsack with clumsy, mittened hands; slid a sausage off the pile, letting it hit the snowy ground with a sudden _ plop _. “But that’s not all you are. Is it?”

The beast dropped to all fours, eating the sausage with loud slurps. When it was finished, it looked up at him expectantly, ears perked forward and nostrils flaring.

Yuuri frowned. Bit his lip. 

“Are you listening to me?”

The beast sniffled again.

“You seem… aware, somehow,” Yuuri said. He tensed as the creature stood once more, its eyes locked to the knapsack in Yuuri’s lap. “I don’t know if I’m just—projecting, I guess, or if you can actually understand my words.”

The beast’s nose jutted high in the air. It did indeed seem very interested in Yuuri, but not in his words; a dark tongue jolted out to lick hungrily along the beast’s muzzle. 

Yuuri pushed a sausage off the pile. The beast caught it with a snap.

“If you can understand me,” he said, feeling already quite foolish, “show me a sign. Please.”

The beast stared.

“Clap your… paws,” Yuuri suggested, “or maybe—make a sound? Something purposeful?” 

The beast stared. Blinked once, slowly.

Yuuri sighed. He hid his face behind one mittened hand; rubbed his chilly cheek tiredly. “This is so stupid,” he mumbled, this time only to himself. “You’re a beast. That _ is _ what you are. Isn’t it?”

The beast stared—and its eyes tracked down, sliding to look at the snowshoes strapped to Yuuri’s feet.

“Ah, these,” Yuuri said with a sigh. “A gift, I’m guessing. Not that I asked for them.”

The beast made no sound.

“But at least these are useful,” Yuuri continued, “not like those gems at the table, or the huge lump of furs on my bed. It took me a few minutes to move those to the floor. The castle wouldn’t take them away.”

The beast’s gaze slid back to the knapsack. Yuuri, feeling a bit badly, pushed two sausages from the top of the pile; the creature caught one, then lowered down to eat the other, making licking and snuffling noises like a pig with a truffle.

“But these are useful,” Yuuri repeated, studying the snowshoes with dark, heavy eyes. He gasped as a sharp thought pierced his thoughts. “These are for me, aren’t they?”

He looked to the creature for affirmation, though it offered no reply or comfort—the knapsack obviously remaining its greatest priority. 

“Gods,” Yuuri mumbled, hiding his face in his mittens. “What am I saying. Of course they’re for me. I’m not—I’m not stupid, you know,” he mumbled, rubbing his face harshly. “I might look it, but I’m not a complete idiot. Even I can read signals, sometimes.” 

The beast still made no sound.

“It’s just—I’m not used to so much attention,” Yuuri went on. The beast certainly offered attention, though Yuuri found _ that _ easy to digest; its eyes followed his hands, and its form followed every tumbling morsel. He dropped another sausage for it, rewarding its silent patience. “I’m not used to lavish gifts. I don’t _ want _ to be used to lavish gifts. What will I do with jewels? What appreciation can I offer a whole pile of furs? I’ll never wear them. I would rather give them away.”

Yuuri sighed. He leaned back on the bannister, resting on a hand outstretched behind him.

“I don’t want gifts that just… prove wealth,” he said, head tilted to the white sky. “A gift, a _ proper _ gift, should be something that takes time and effort. And it should receive time and effort in return.”

He glanced down at the beast. It sat still and calm, waiting quietly.

Yuuri dropped another few sausages.

“Like this,” he said, and chuckled under his breath. “I took the time to gather these for you, and you have to wait for them nicely as I ramble on. Equal effort, equal gain.”

The beast finished the last of the meats; looked back up for another. 

“A pile of jewels,” Yuuri muttered, voice going sour. “How am I supposed to answer that? I can’t. It’s impossible. It feels like I’m being lured into debt, where I’ll be forced to open my door and my legs on command.”

The creature stood and leaned on the side of the staircase, large paws spread on ice and stone.

“I’m not falling for that.” Yuuri sat up, legs folding up so he could rest his head on his knees. “I’d rather ignore it than fall into that trap.”

The beast pushed off the staircase, once then twice, as though trying to shake food out of a tree.

Yuuri huffed a quiet laugh. “All right,” he said, flicking more sausages off the side. “I don’t have many more left, you know.”

Untroubled, the creature fell to all-fours to collect its new bounty.

“You really are an animal,” Yuuri concluded, sighing again. “But that’s all right. I don’t mind. It’s nice that you’re listening anyway.”

He dropped the rest of the sausages, and the beast ate well, shoving its long head into drifts of soft snow—chasing whatever scraps had fallen from Yuuri’s lap.

{~}

Yuuri returned to the castle when the sun was still in the sky. He had not slept through the night previous; exhaustion already followed his steps, a flightless bird pecking at his heels. The prospect of an early sleep seemed brighter and sweeter with every moment he remained awake. And—knowing what he knew now about his husband—Yuuri thought it prudent to sleep before night truly fell.

Once he reached his room, Yuuri muttered: “Please run a bath.” 

A nearby hum of running water danced into his ears. Yuuri set his glasses down upon the side table at his bed. Lantern lights reflected off of their lenses like a clutch of firebugs; he left them there without a thought as he trudged to the bathroom, leaving a path of clothes in his wake.

Bathwater steadied his heart and softened his edges. As he soaked, Yuuri let his head fall back onto the marble lip. Allowed his eyes to slide closed. Behind his eyelids, he saw a beast, black-eyed and black-soled; he saw blood as it steamed and oozed and dripped from its muzzle. He saw the subtle glint of oil on its snout after it had gorged itself on sausage. He thought of the grumbles and whines that rumbled from its chest, incurred by Yuuri’s every step, every stroke of his hands.

He thought of Viktor, begging to be let inside.

Yuuri exhaled slowly. 

“May I have a linen?” He asked, eyes shut. 

When Yuuri’s hand reached out blindly, it fell upon a stretch of clean, soft white. 

He mumbled “Thank you,” to the castle’s ever-present ears.

Wrapping the broad cloth around his shoulders, Yuuri walked from the bath.

Although he had hardly cared enough to investigate it, there was a full wardrobe in his bedroom. Yuuri rifled through it now, seeking something… proper. Something with a good color; something that would seem effortless, yet careful, an understated elegance next to Viktor’s ethereality. He paused on a kaftan of deep blue, vines and roses curled in a precious embroidery of emerald and platinum. Someone had once told Yuuri that he looked handsome in blue. Whether or not this was trustworthy information was beyond Yuuri’s capacity, but he had nothing else to lean on—no friends or allies to ask.

He imagined seeking out Chris and asking him what to wear. He then imagined the door shutting on him, the man’s green-eyed stare the perfect epitome of tired distaste. 

Yuuri shook his head once, hard. Silly. He didn’t even know where Chris’s room _ was _.

He settled on the deep blue kaftan and a pair of black woolen pants, which he folded neatly and draped on the ottoman at the end of his bed. He dressed in sleepwear for now, keen to rest until night.

As he slid into bed, Yuuri had a curious thought. “Can you wake me?” He wondered aloud, settling into the swiftly warming bedding. “Before he comes?”

Not a sound followed, but Yuuri fell asleep all the same.

{~}

He woke to a loud _ whump_.

Yuuri blinked against a brightly lit room, the lanterns burning high; he eased up to survey the room, seeking the source of the noise. Next to his bed, a book lay heavy and askew on the floor, pages flailed into a fan of disarray. Yuuri’s pulse calmed as he picked up the book and straightened its wrinkles, placing it back on the side table gingerly.

“Thank you,” he whispered—a hand over his fluttering-moth heart.

He dressed. He folded his sleepwear carefully, placing them on the cushioned ottoman. Ran a comb through his mussed hair and pushed it back as neatly as he could.

Within minutes of waking, Yuuri stood at the door. He lifted a hand, resting a palm on the metal.

It was warm.

_ Knock, knock. _

Before the sound ceased, Yuuri swung the door open.

Viktor stood in the hallway—pale eyes wide, fist lifted, and a small bouquet of white flowers in his hand. He wore a pale kaftan of lavender velvet; silver stitching sketched delicate clouds, raindrops, and gusts onto his chest, a dainty storm in a morning sky. A cloak of rich silver ermine covered his shoulders.

“Yuuri,” he muttered, the name falling from his lips in a gust of cool air. He blinked, glanced down at the flowers—twitching them behind his back as though to hide them; aborting the motion immediately—and bit his lip.

“Hello,” Yuuri said. A smile found its way onto his lips; he was surprised to find that it wasn’t a labor. 

“Hello,” Viktor replied—and said nothing else. Although his mouth was open, whatever he’d meant to say died as he simply _ stared _ at Yuuri, studying the set of his dark eyes and the curve of his cheek. To Yuuri, the god’s stare was piercing; it seemed merciless, almost cruel as it somehow blackened, sleet-sharp gaze latching onto Yuuri’s cheekbone. 

A single hand rose, rushing high—

And Yuuri flinched as Viktor cradled the side of his face.

“Who did this?” He said icily, swiping a brisk thumb over Yuuri’s cheek. 

At the god’s cold touch, a swirling cauldron of white-hot hunger settled deep in Yuuri’s stomach. He’d nearly forgotten about this—about what they shared; what Yuuri thought of when he was alone, warm and writhing in the sheets. He clamped a heavy hand onto Viktor’s wrist, but did not pull his touch away just yet.

And Sara. Her too—Yuuri had nearly forgotten about her.

“I fell,” he whispered, voice shaky. “I was—I tried to climb the staircase too quickly, outside. And I fell.”

A few moments of silence.

“You’re lying.”

“I’m not—”

“I thought we were through with that,” Viktor interrupted, and he sounded—hurt, of all things. “Please don’t lie to me, _ myshka_.”

Yuuri gritted his jaw. “I will lie to you if you sound like that.”

“Like what?”

“Like you want to hurt someone.”

Viktor sipped in a startled breath. Slid his touch away. 

Although he thought to clasp down tight, Yuuri let his wrist slip from his grasp.

“I didn’t mean to scare you,” Viktor said, and rubbed the back of his neck with his now-free hand.

“You didn’t scare me,” Yuuri responded—and was again surprised to find it was true. “And I’m sorry I lied. You’re right; I didn’t fall. But the culprit is long gone now, and she’ll forget about all this, if she’s lucky.”

Viktor bit his lip. “I,” he began; bit harder— “I don’t want to see you hurt. I can’t tolerate it.”

Yuuri huffed a quiet laugh. “Unfortunately, that’s not always up to you.”

That bite deepened, pink lips dimpling and darkening under pressure—like Viktor wanted to argue, but couldn’t find the words to counter. 

Yuuri’s smile turned bemused. He tilted his head to look down at the bouquet. “What do you have there?”

“Oh,” Viktor said, jerking the flowers forward suddenly. “I brought them for you.”

He held them out for Yuuri to accept; Yuuri took them with both hands, investigating their velvety petals and elegantly drooped faces with a curious gaze and gentle touch. “Thank you,” he mumbled, dark eyes flicking up to catch Viktor’s.

“I found them,” Viktor said, hurried and ardent. “I—I looked for them myself.”

Sudden fear flickered into Yuuri’s chest. “You went where flowers are blooming?”

Viktor nodded, smiling proudly. “Yes.”

“But,” Yuuri said, a nervous sweat prickling the back of his neck, “does that mean you… brought winter to somewhere that grows?”

Viktor’s face blanched; Yuuri stared, shocked that it was even possible to see that alabaster skin paling. “No,” he rushed out. “No, Yuuri, I—this flower, it can grow where there’s already snow. Not too much of it, but some.”

Yuuri stared another moment. He buried his embarrassment into the tops of the white flowers, indulging in their mild, fresh scent. “Well,” he said quietly, avoiding Viktor’s gaze now. “Thank you.”

Another long moment of quiet hung between them, pulled taut with the unspoken.

Viktor broke the silence to ask: “May I come in?”

“No,” Yuuri replied, without thinking. Before he could see Viktor’s reaction, or lose his nerve—balking in the face of the god’s anger or disappointment—Yuuri rushed out: “I thought, instead, we might have a walk.”

Yuuri did not look up to see Viktor’s face. He did not have the courage.

“A walk,” Viktor repeated.

“Yes,” Yuuri mumbled, lips pressed to the petals.

“I’d love to.”

Yuuri finally glanced up from the bouquet. A small smile was curled onto Viktor’s lips. No drafts or icy gusts reached Yuuri’s skin; the previous chill had settled into a comfortable warmth. 

And that smile was true. Yuuri could see that.

“Well,” Viktor said, tilting his form, offering Yuuri an arm and a charming grin. “Shall we?”

Yuuri smiled back. Looked down to the bouquet bashfully; dropped his smile in realization. “Oh! Wait, I have to—” He rushed back into his bedroom, mumbling about the flowers and wilting. The castle placed a vase in his periphery, already filled with lukewarm water; his hands trembled to tuck the flowers into their new cradle, pulse pattering at his throat. All Yuuri could think of was Viktor waiting for him at the threshold, an arm extended and that disarming gentleness in his eyes.

When Yuuri’s hands fell away from the vase, a bracing breath fell from his mouth.

“All right,” he said. He looked to the doorway, where Viktor stood patiently, a calm and fond expression on his lovely face. “Let’s… let’s go.”

Yuuri walked to the hallway, to Viktor’s side. His arm was no longer raised in playful invitation, but Yuuri took it nevertheless, both hands curling into the crook of Viktor’s elbow. He still could not find the courage to look into Viktor’s eyes—but from the corner of his gaze, Yuuri caught the look of surprise and delight on Viktor’s face.

They began to walk together, just meandering down the hallway. Viktor’s free hand rose to cover Yuuri’s knuckles, resting gentle and warm atop his skin. 

“Where would you like to go?”

“I don’t know,” Yuuri said, looking forward.

“Do you only want to wander the halls?” Viktor asked, a wry amusement in his voice.

“No,” Yuuri said, blushing. “I just… I’m tired of that room. I don’t like being in the same place too long.”

_ We have only seen one another in that room_, Yuuri did not say, though it resonated clear as a bell in his mind. _ Sometimes I wonder if you even exist, outside these walls. _

“Then,” Viktor said, leading Yuuri towards the emptied dining room, “would you like to go outside?”

In surprise, Yuuri looked up to him again. They left the hallway and entered the dining room.

“But I can’t…” Yuuri said, trailing off. He separated from Viktor to walk on the other side of the table. As he drifted forward, Yuuri realized that they had already ventured farther than the castle would have ever allowed Yuuri to go alone. “I thought… I was locked inside.”

“This castle protects you,” Viktor said, casual and calm. They watched one another from across the wide table, walking in tandem. The wolves and pines and pale flames adorning the blue-ice walls fell away; all Yuuri saw was Viktor, matching his footsteps, watching his face, looking nowhere else. “But it does not protect me. At night, I can go wherever I please.”

They converged at the end of the room, before the threshold to the final door. 

“So, _ myshka_,” Viktor said, and raised a bare hand palm-up—an offer, a promise. “Where would you like to go?”

After a moment of breathless hesitation, Yuuri placed his hand on Viktor’s. “I,” he muttered, words halting in his throat; the palm under his was so _ warm_— “I don’t know.”

Viktor’s thumb rubbed over his knuckles. He lifted Yuuri’s hand gently, bringing it to his lips. Even his kiss was warm, pressed into the back of Yuuri’s hand like a wisp of silk. “Then perhaps I’ll take you to beautiful places,” he said, grinning where their skin touched. “Places befitting you.”

Yuuri blushed—then remembered to breathe, and huffed, and pulled his hand away. “No,” he said, rubbing the back of his hand. “Take me—take me somewhere important. Places that are meaningful to you.”

Viktor said nothing.

“Don’t you have them?” Yuuri asked.

Viktor blinked. “Yes,” he replied, and blinked again, laughing under his breath. “Yes, of course. All right. Then I will. And, here—”

Yuuri flinched as Viktor reached past and behind him; a moment later, he held a parka, something that must have been placed on the table. Viktor grabbed it by the base and lifted it high, a cheeky grin dancing onto his beautiful face.

“Arms up?” He asked, smiling wide yet tight, as though he expected Yuuri to blush and retreat once more.

Yuuri _ did _ blush, and his mouth tightened for a moment. Then, obligingly, he lifted his arms. 

It was Viktor’s turn to hesitate. 

Yuuri lifted his brows in challenge. Wiggled his fingers impatiently. “Well?” He teased. “Won’t you help me dress?”

Viktor did so without a word. Yuuri thought his hands moved slower than necessary as they grazed along his arms, his sides; but he didn’t flinch from it, nor did he dislike the heat that reached through the wool of his kaftan. Last of all, Viktor took the silver cloak from his own shoulders and looped it around Yuuri’s, settling the fur flat and pinning it with a slender silver brooch. 

“There,” Viktor said, seeming satisfied and just the slightest bit covetous. “Now you’ll be warm.”

Yuuri studied that look in his eye: the glinting reflection of himself, seen and dressed in Viktor’s clothes, by Viktor’s own hand. Even Yuuri, as doubting as he was, could see the pleasure in Viktor’s gaze as he beheld Yuuri in yet another of his cloaks. 

It sent boldness into Yuuri’s voice; jolted fire into the ends of his fingers. 

He rested a hand on Viktor’s chest, running a bare palm across the bumps of silver stitching in his kaftan. “I like this color on you,” he said—telling the truth again, and so easily.

“Do you?” Viktor asked, almost a whisper.

“Yes,” Yuuri said, smiling. “You look beautiful in lighter tones.”

“...Oh,” Viktor breathed—and Yuuri noticed that he had gone very, very still.

Yuuri patted his shoulder. Lowered his hand; offered it palm-up. “Shall we?”

Viktor finally seemed to notice that Yuuri’s hands were bare. Frowning—and producing a small bundle of fur seemingly out of nowhere—Viktor took the offered hand and tugged it into a new mitten. Under Yuuri's careful watch, that usual marble-pale face darkened to a lively pink. Viktor refused meet Yuuri’s eyes, even as his voice eked out in a strained, tense tone: “Now give me the other. Please.”

Yuuri tried not to laugh as he gave Viktor his other hand. 

Instead of dressing this one, Viktor took Yuuri’s hand in his own. Right away, Yuuri’s bare hand was warmer than the one swaddled in fur.

Yuuri half-smiled, head tilted curiously. “Won’t I need two mittens?”

Viktor clenched his hand tighter. “You won’t.”

“Won’t I get cold?”

“You won’t be cold.”

“Really?” Yuuri asked—playing, teasing, enjoying the flush on Viktor’s cheeks; the way his fingers sent heat along Yuuri’s skin. “But what if I let go of your hand?”

“Don’t,” Viktor said, and caught Yuuri’s gaze like a fox’s leg in a steel-trap. “Don’t let go.”

The air was stolen from Yuuri’s lungs—for the winter king saw him, truly saw him, with crystalline eyes full of desperate longing. They were the eyes of a hermit; the eyes of a feral creature clawing and sobbing at the walls; eyes that held a solitude capable of reaching into Yuuri’s ribs, gouging through his lungs, and pulling his heart out fresh and beating.

“I won’t,” Yuuri breathed.

Viktor closed his eyes. Smiled. Pressed another kiss to Yuuri’s knuckles, feather-light and brief. 

Yuuri’s chest swelled at the sight. He wove their fingers together, clasping Viktor’s hand tighter, closer, firmer. 

“Let’s go,” he said. 

Viktor’s soft smile grew wide and luminous—a toothy, pink-cheeked beam.

They walked from the castle together, mirrored footsteps steady and sure in the howling night.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> wow this chapter sure did beat me senseless! but that's life sometimes!
> 
> I hope you enjoyed it. tbh I'm not happy with it, but also tbh, I never will be. also I'll probably end up splitting the last chapter into two. I really wanted to include the next scene (their "first date" scene, lol) in this chapter, but the word count got away from me.
> 
> pls leave a comment if you'd like! I read and treasure each and every one!
> 
> thanks for reading ~

**Author's Note:**

> this fic has art now!! (omfg)
> 
> [portraits](https://pandabomb.tumblr.com/post/188713336823/gorgeous-pair-done-by-adashuko-x-for-my) by [@adashuko](https://twitter.com/adashuko?s=17)
> 
> [Yuuri and Viktor at the door (Ch 2)](https://mandolinearts.tumblr.com/post/189087455496/no-myshka-a-voice-said-not-yet-from-the) by [@mandolinearts](https://mobile.twitter.com/mandolinearts)
> 
> [ I'm on [tumblr @pandabomb](https://pandabomb.tumblr.com) and [twitter @pandabomb7](https://twitter.com/pandabomb7) ]


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